Seasons of Change
by Angelina Aintithenniel
Summary: Injured and unable to fly, Toothless is forced to watch his rider dragged into captivity by Viking raiders. With Hiccup gone, Stoick begins to realize how far he will go to get his son back. Poor Hiccup just wants to stay alive and make it back to his home, Berk. Hiccup!whump Fatherly!Stoic
1. Beginning of the Adventure

Seasons of Change

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Adventure

Grey skies, sheeting rain, and waterlogged streets greeted Hiccup as he and Toothless bounded back from their morning ride. Autumn had come to Berk. The mild and occasionally sunny days of summer had given way to the colder and wetter days of fall. Soon, the equinox would be upon them, and the sun would leave again.

The harvest was due in the next two weeks, and Berk was bustling with activity. Vikings all around the small island were setting out to their day's work. Gliding over the village, Hiccup could already see the fires of the shops blazing.

"Watch out!" Toothless had barely landed before the warning came. A woven bag landed heavily next to Hiccup, a cascade of meal puffing into a cloud that clung to Hiccup's new sheepskin vest.

Thorlot the baker appeared next to the bag a moment later, dusting Hiccup off with a rough hand and an amused chuckle. Satisfied with her job, she gave Hiccup a gapped-tooth grin, "Well, if it ain't the little Chief. A'ways in my flour, ain't ye?"

Hiccup blushed at the nickname and gentle reproach, "Sorry, Thorlot."

Thorlot snorted and began to drag the bag of meal the rest of the way to the outdoor oven shielded by a rock hood. "Get on wi' ye, then."

Hiccup gave her a lopsided grin and disappeared up the hill from the bakery. Toothless bounded away after a minute, harassing another Viking who was coming from the smokehouse with a basket of herrings. The house of the Chief was only slightly larger than some of the other dwellings in Berk, but it was more ornately carved and coloured. Hiccup always liked to trace the outline of the new dragon figure carved above the front door as he climbed up the stairs to his house.

The front door burst open as Hiccup reached for the latch. Stoic the Vast lived up to his name in many ways and currently one of those was his size. Before his father could realize he was there, Hiccup had bounced off his belted belly.

"Ach!" Hiccup's rear end hit the stone steps. Before the rest of him could follow tumbling down the stairs, a vice-like grip latched onto his upper arm.

"How many time have I told ye not to sneak?" sighed Stoick as he lifted his son to his feet and threw a hand around his shoulders. "One of these days, Thor knows what will happen."

Hiccup ducked out of his father's grasp. While their relationship had come leaps and bounds from the dragon wars nearly two years prior, things were still awkward. "Thanks, Dad."

The bigger Viking snorted. "And keep out of trouble."

Hiccup watched him leave before turning back to the house. He had so much left to do before tomorrow. After months of pleading and preparing, Hiccup was finally setting out to explore past the Barbaric Archipelago.

Gobber had set some saddlebags outside their door the night before. Hiccup dragged the two heavy objects over his shoulder and into his personal shop. He had already set out his overnight and first aid kits, as well as navigation and mapping tools. Now, all he had to do was to pack food and mead. Two waterskins hung by a cord on the wall. The skins had come from last season's slaughter and were still in good condition. He'd fill them with mead later that night.

The day passed agonizingly slow as the excitement of tomorrow's adventure filled Hiccup. He busied himself with double-checking the instructions he had set up at the dragon school. Eventually a consternated Astrid threw him out with shout, "Your excitement is messing with the dragons!"

Banned from his school, Hiccup wandered around Berk, helping with odds and ends. Construction on a new dragon barn was underway; hopefully it would be finished before the winter solstice. Hiccup found himself running tasks for the builders. After a disastrous attempt to help haul rough materials a few moons before, he had been banned from directly working with construction. Of course, he'd used Toothless to help lift the larger timbers into place, and had worked with the builders to design the barn, but practical tasks had been shifted to hands better suited for the task than his.

Finally, dusk was nearing. Hiccup practically skipped to the smokehouse to pick up the basket of smoked and pickled fish he would need for the trip. A small survival supply had been set aside for Toothless, but the dragon would need to fish to get his fill. Hiccup spent an hour packing his bags, throwing in a few items he likely wouldn't need but still might be good to have along. The last thing he added was a small map crammed onto a yak-skin parchment.

Hiccup looked at the map he had copied. Bjorn the trader had been so shocked to find another Viking who liked maps that he had let Hiccup copy this particular map in exchange for a paltry sum of leather barely enough large for one saddle. It had shown the islands in which Bjorn spent his winters. The trader had even shown Hiccup a few tips to notate his maps and illustrate landforms.

After two nights of work, a fairly good copy of the map had been reproduced. Hiccup had tucked away the new knowledge for a time when he would be free to explore. The dragon rider spent moons trying to convince his father to let him make the journey. Hiccup had never embarked on a long distance journey before, and he had finally found a distant land he could feasibly travel to.

The summer solstice had come and gone before Stoick relented. The Viking knew that his son would go with or without his permission, so at least by agreeing, he could be sure that Hiccup would at the minimum listen to his safety concerns. Several fortnights were spent planning the journey before Hiccup finally obtained permission to set out several days short of the Fall equinox. The equinox was far enough from the onset of winter to ensure that Hiccup would return before the ice set in, and it also got the clumsy Viking out of the village for the duration of the harvest. As much as Hiccup had helped the infrastructure and people of the island, he was still a clumsy boy who was alarmingly prone to disaster.

"Tomorrow's the day," Hiccup breathed giddily to himself. He was sitting cross-legged in front of the fire in his room, his dragon curled up at his side. Toothless snuffled in agreement and nudged his head underneath his rider's hand. Hiccup smiled and scratched behind the dragon's ears.

The heavy front door creaked as it opened. The sound of footsteps echoed through their dwelling as Stoick tromped through the main room, "We missed ye at the hall. I brought ye stew."

A bowl of stew plunked down on the floor next to Hiccup. Toothless eyed it hungrily as he smelled the salmon.

"Thanks, Dad. I'm a little too excited to eat right now," grumbled Hiccup as he eyed the substance with distaste.

"Nonsense, my boy. Ye've got a journey ahead of ye, can't start that on an empty stomach, now can ya?" The hopeful look on his father's face was too much for Hiccup. He quickly slurped up a few spoonfuls, swallowing forcefully in an attempt to keep the stew down.

Stoick smiled triumphantly, "I'll leave ye to sleep then, and be sure to finish yer stew."

As soon as his father's steps echoed down the stairs, Hiccup slid the bowl to Toothless, and the dragon greedily finished the fish mush before he had even managed an, "Have at it, bud."

Hiccup checked his gear and provisions one last time before turning in for the night. His pallet of wool and feathers seemed unusually lumpy that night. The boy tossed and turned for hours after his dragon and father had fallen asleep. Anticipation boiled just below his skin. Tomorrow would be a big day.

 **Author's Notes:**

 **The Barbaric Archipelago technically is a fictional chain of islands based off of the original author's travels in the Scottish Hebrides. Given this and the general feel of both Scottish and Norse heritage on Berk, I have decided to place the Barbaric Archipelago north of Scotland, but still close to the mainland. This would be northeast of the Hebrides, considerably south of the Faeroe Islands, and west of both the Orkney and Shetland archipelagoes. This is still close enough to have a feasible Norse influence (considering the Vikings pretty much ran rampant in northern and western Scotland for a few hundred years), while also maintaining the Scottish heritage apparent in the movies and giving a realistic place for an island chain with the type of climate described.**

 **Given the technology of the films and the society, dates for settlements kinda went out the window. I'll probably set this in the 1100s, but there won't really be a definitive time period. It's definitely before the advent of Christianity in Scandinavian Scotland. Expect historic Vikings from a timespan of several hundred years making cameos along with technology, customs, and beliefs spanning several hundred years. Basically this story is taking elements from Viking culture in the northern Scottish islands from the time the Vikings took over the Picts and Scots to the time the islands were finally absorbed under the Scottish crown and the earldom of Orkney dissolved.**

 **For some part, I will most definitely know what I am talking about. For a good portion of it though, I will likely be relying on internet research (my knowledge of Scottish Vikings mainly comes from strict history courses and medieval literature, i.e. the** _ **Magnus Saga**_ **s, the** _ **Prose Edda,**_ **and the** _ **Orkneyinga Saga**_ **. This knowledge is almost entirely political). If any of you out there spot weaknesses and/or inaccuracies in my history/portrayal of Viking life, let me know and I will see if it's something I can fix. After all, this is just a fanfiction, not a full-blown historical drama. Expect references to made up villages as well as historical sites. There shouldn't be a significant presence of OCs outside of the general background characters used to flesh out the story more (there will be no significant romantic OCs or anything of the like, though I likely will have a self-insert cameo for all of five seconds).**

 **Please note that I am not a linguist and my dialect writing skills really aren't very good. I will try to use both stereotypically Scottish and Norse accents and dialects to better simulate both the history and movie setting (try being the operative word here).**

 **This entire storyline has been mapped out and an outline written. Hopefully I will get through this whole thing without a horrible upload rate. That said, this is my first long plot, multi-chap fic, so patience would be appreciated as I figure out the ropes for this fandom and my own schedule. While term is still on, I will try to update 1-2 times a month.**


	2. Exploring New Seas

Chapter 2: Exploring New Seas

Dawn had yet to break over the horizon when Toothless soared across the sky. As a shaded figure against the black night, he could barely be seen by Stoick's watchful eyes.

Hiccup had wanted to leave early enough to reach the sea-stacks by the time first light broke. All he had to do from there was to keep the polestar on his left, and then he would be set to find the islands that Bjorn the trader had spoken of. By ship, the journey from the islands to Berk took well over two days one way if the winds were good. Hiccup was hoping to cut that in half by flying.

The sea-stacks passed below the dragon and rider. Delling's morning light began to spill over the sky as the first hints of the sun could be seen. With an excited bark, Toothless spit out a plasma bolt, allowing the warm updraft to push him and his rider into the first rays of daylight.

"Excited there, Toothless?" asked Hiccup.

The dragon grinned and chortled deeply. Hiccup laughed along with him. The morning swam by in a mix of fog, sea, and the vague coastlines of familiar islands. Just past midday, they reached the eastern-most island in the Barbaric archipelago, a small hunk of rock covered in tree-lined hills. Hiccup directed Toothless into a steep dive, and whooped loudly as they hurtled towards the ground. Toothless' wings extended and filled with air just in time to slow them down into a bounding landing. Skidding to a final halt, Hiccup sprang from his saddle with a face-splitting grin.

"Ready for lunch?" he asked.

Toothless barked, teeth lighting up his lopsided smile. His rider unstrapped and lifted off the laden saddlebags fastened across his flanks. Free of his burden, the dragon bounded across the rocky shore while he waited for Hiccup to finish stowing the bags.

As soon as the boy was done, Toothless was nosing him back into his saddle, "Okay, greedy guts, let's get you some fish."

The two spent nearly twenty minutes diving in and out of the ocean in search of food. Full of cod, Toothless flew contentedly back to shore. He helped to dry off Hiccup's soaking clothes before curling up on a sun-warmed rock for his afternoon nap. After his lunch of lutefisk, Hiccup curled up in a comfy patch of moss and grass for his own nap.

The afternoon passed quietly. Toothless woke around sunset and attempted to nudge his rider awake. When the boy didn't move, Toothless licked his face. Startling awake with a shout, Hiccup beat off the wet tongue and flung the saliva back in the dragon's face. "Toothless! How many times do I have to tell that doesn't wash out?!"

Toothless snorted sardonically before jerking his head towards the setting sun. Hiccup sighed and stretched out his stiff back. "Ready for the next leg, bud?"

The next leg of the flight was the longest. Here, Hiccup crossed the open ocean. As long as he flew in between the pole star and the rising moon, he should make landfall on the islands that Bjorn had told him about by morning. Hiccup nearly salivated at the new possibilities that could be opened to Berk if it only took a little over a day's flight to reach the trading islands.

The first half of the flight was uneventful. The skies above remained relatively clear, and the seas below calm. There was a light, but deceptively cold breeze that blew the Arctic air in from the north.

Clouds began to descend on the starry sky during the second half of the flight. The smell of rain clung heavily to Hiccup's nostrils. Rolling thunder in the distance promised a storm. Sure enough, rain began to fall in driving sheets just minutes later. Frozen pellets of water mixed with the wind and rain to strip Hiccup's face raw and red.

"The gods hate me," muttered Hiccup. Over the open sea, there was nothing Hiccup could do but hold steady on his course and hope they could find land and shelter. "Come on, Toothless, we can do this."

Together, dragon and rider battled the storm for nearly an hour before the distant outline of a coast could be seen, appearing darker against the horizon than the storm clouds. "Land!" Hiccup cried.

Fighting against the unforgiving wind, the two pushed to gain the shore. The island was close enough to make out the outlines of fir trees when disaster struck. Lightning that had been flitting dangerously from cloud-to-cloud leaped from the heavens with a blinding flash and an accompanying crack that sent shudders down Hiccup's spine. The bolt struck Toothless' tail fin, melting the leather, and running through the wire attached to Hiccup's control pedal. Toothless tried his best to absorb the electricity, knowing his rider couldn't handle the energy quite like the dragon could.

The charge heated Hiccup's metal leg and seared the stump to which it was strapped. He and Toothless both cried out in agony. Almost as soon as it had struck, the circuit was completed, and the lightning left Toothless' body. The mingled smell of charred flesh and heated dragon scales lingered in the lightning's wake. Toothless and Hiccup seemed to hang in the air for a minute, forward momentum carrying them a few feet further, before they began to fall.

Dragon and rider plummeted to earth. The wind pushed them into a haphazard spiral, as Toothless' wings stretched out as far as they could go in an attempt to slow the pair down. Hiccup frantically tried to regain control of their flight before a glimpse back revealed that Toothless' tailfin had warped and melted together. Left with no idea what to do, he flattened himself out on the back of the dragon, and clung for dear life to his friend's neck.

They went down together, taking down a tree before skidding across the earth. They came to violent a stop in a shower of dirt. The storm continued to rage above, fueled by Thor's wrath. The wind and rain snapped the treetops together, as thunder echoed through the hills of the island. The odd lightning strike illuminated a still, black bundle, wreathed in the wreckage of old heather and bracken.

 **Angelina: I'm not entirely sure how fast dragons are. My base assumption is that they can travel faster than the classic longboats. I've decided to base my calculations off of the speed of birds of prey. Toothless is loosely based off of the Peregrine Falcon, though I did tone down the speed. In a high-speed dive a Night Fury can exceed 150 mph, but a general flight speed would be around 30 mph (the speed of a galloping horse). For a long distance flight, an efficient speed would be around 20 mph (like jogging, not too fast that the pace can't be kept up, but not too slow to lose momentum).**

 **Arthur: Basically we tried to make dragons useful without making them too overpowered.**

 **Angelina: Lutefisk is a traditional Scandinavian meal of fish basically pickled in lye. It was first mentioned in literature in the mid-16th century, but the manuscript talks about a long history of lutefisk, so it could be decades to centuries older than that. I don't really know, but it's a distinctive holiday dish today in Scandinavia and would probably keep well for a long journey.**

 **Arthur: And it's one of the most disgusting things she could think of.**

 **Angelina: Also, Berk doesn't seem like the Viking civilization that would need to travel a lot, especially since their knowledge of their own archipelago is limited.**

 **Arthur: one last note before we leave you, the description of the storm was inspired by the gothic novels and Robert Walpole's influence.**


	3. Dragon-wrecked

Chapter 3: Dragon-wrecked

The storm was beginning to die down when Hiccup struggled out of the death grip Toothless had him in. A split second before they had hit the ground, Toothless had wrestled Hiccup off his back and shielded him with his own body. Wrapped tightly inside the cocoon of the dragon's wings, the boy had survived the impact relatively unharmed.

Once Hiccup crawled out, Toothless groaned and rolled over onto his back. He snorted against the falling rain as it turned his earthy bed into mud.

It was still dark out, but Hiccup had caught a glimpse of a stone building when a lightning strike lit up the stormy sky. "We need to get to shelter. Do you think you can make it?"

Toothless groaned again and rolled over with a pained whine. The two stumbled along the dark terrain to the stone hut. Rocks and pitted earth snarled them and Hiccup fell more than once, gasping in pain as the uneven ground jarred his burnt leg.

"Hello?" Hiccup called as the pair approached the stone hut. "Is anyone there? We need help!"

The angry wind and creaking trees filled the silence as Hiccup waited for an answer. The boy called a few more times, before shrugging and continuing on.

The hut was larger than it had first appeared from a distance. It was almost a perfect circle covered in a tightly bound thatch roof. Carefully, Hiccup felt around the edge of the stone walls worn smooth by the weather, until he found an opening. A curtain of sheepskin hung over the entrance in place of a proper door. Hiccup pushed aside the curtain and dragged himself into the small hut. It took a little maneuvering for Toothless to wiggle inside. He only managed it with help from Hiccup.

"Well, this is cozy," Hiccup mumbled as he stumbled about the dark interior. No sooner had he said this then he ran into a wall. His already sore rear end connected with the dirt floor. Hiccup lay on the ground for a moment as he tried to get his bearings and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. The last spike of adrenalin from colliding with the wall began to fade, and the soreness in Hiccup's body set in with a dull throb. Trying to get up put pressure on his burnt limb; nausea rolled in his stomach and threatened to upset his lunch. Hiccup swayed for a moment before Toothless steadied him with a whine that sounded both worried and pained.

"Thanks, Toothless. What do you say we get some light in here?" asked Hiccup as he felt along the dragon's flank to the saddlebags. He rummaged through the left one. As his luck would have it, his overnight kit was at the bottom of the bag.

Inside his bundled blanket, Hiccup pulled out his flint and tinder. Stacking it carefully on the floor, he struggled with creating a spark before the small pile finally caught fire. The flickering kindling lit the hut and Hiccup quickly saw that the space had, at one time, been divided into three rooms. Now, only one of the inner walls was intact. The other was only a small pile of stones left stacked against the exterior wall. On the remaining wall, there was a torch made of sheepskin soaked in oil and bound tightly around a large stick. A cloth had been put over the torch to protect it. Hiccup carefully lit the torch, and the light in the hut doubled.

The new light illuminated the far side of the hut where dried food goods and basic materials had been stacked. Limping over to the opening in the one intact inner wall, Hiccup found an empty room. On his way back into the main room, Hiccup spied a small hatch in the roof above a pit lined with stones. By now, the rain had lessened enough that the boy was more than happy to open the hatch and let the thick, foul-smelling smoke from the torch escape.

Hiccup's stump throbbed terribly as he hobbled around the hut. Satisfied that every inch of his temporary home had been explored, Hiccup sank gratefully against Toothless' middle, supporting himself on the rising and falling side of his dragon. He rummaged through the saddle bags once more to find his first aid kit.

A burn salve that Berk's healer had perfected during the years of war against the dragons sat inside an unassuming wooden box. He carefully unstrapped his metal leg and slowly pulled it away. The cloth that was bound around his stump for padding was obviously a lost cause, blackened in the middle where it had sat against his metal leg. Once the leg was off and the padding cloth gingerly unwound, Hiccup was thankful to see that the burn wasn't as serious as he feared. The skin on the bottom and side of his stump was red, and there was some blistering, but nothing had been blackened or cracked. He had suffered worse burns from training dragons. Carefully, Hiccup smeared the salve over his stump, biting back a shout at the brief spike of pain.

Toothless cooed worriedly as Hiccup panted from the exertion of wrapping his injured limb in bandages. The two sat in silence for a while as the salve began to work its wonders. The wind outside died down and the rain finally let up before Hiccup started moving again. He used Toothless' side to lever himself up and hop over to unstrap and remove the saddlebags from the dragon's rump. Unbuckling the bags was easy enough, but lifting them off would be too much for Hiccup in his current state. Instead, he settled for pushing it over to one side. As the bags slid to the ground, Toothless howled in pain.

"What's wrong, bud? What did I do?" Hiccup frantically asked as he searched the dragon's flank for injuries.

Toothless' tail flopped slightly when the dragon tried to curl it into himself. A high pitched wail echoed through the stone hut. Carefully, Hiccup felt along the dragon's tail until he came to a point where the scales were damaged. Toothless' tail wasn't bent, but Hiccup couldn't feel a break. The pain his dragon was suddenly voicing led Hiccup to believe either a muscle had been damaged or a bone had fractured.

"I don't know what's happened to your tail, Toothless. Let me see if I can find anything to help." Hiccup strapped his leg back on, ignoring the pain. With the torch clutched firmly in a remarkably steady hand, Hiccup hobbled outside. The night was still dark, but the light illuminated enough to keep him from falling.

Hiccup returned with a long, straight stick that he had broken in two. With the sticks and leftover bandages, the boy splinted Toothless' tail. After everything was tied up as best he could Hiccup immobilized the tail.

"I guess we're stuck here until you start feeling better, huh?" asked Hiccup as he scratched Toothless behind his ear. The dragon huffed softly in annoyance.

Hiccup rolled out his bed and snuggled in. When it was light enough, he would explore their new surroundings. For now, the young Viking was exhausted and in pain. Sleep was the best thing for him.

Beside him Toothless slept fitfully. Weren't they a pair? Hiccup mused to himself, two cripples stranded gods knew where, several days out from Berk. Maybe rescue would come before Toothless' tail healed. That would be nice. Hiccup did not want to get stuck in this hut for winter.

 **Angelina: Not too much to explain here, the hut is based off of the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae.**

 **Arthur: She really loves that dig, so expect it to show up a lot.**

 **Angelina: Of course I do, Arthur, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site! Anyway, hopefully this chapter was too your liking. More excitement should follow.**

 **Thanks to my betas: Jojo and zvc56 (Aafia), you guys are wonderful and very kind to help me!  
**


	4. The Morning After

Chapter 4: The morning after

Dawn came and went and midday approached rapidly before Hiccup opened bleary eyes. For a few moments he lay on his back and stared at the roof, trying to figure out why it was bothering him. There was a dull ache in his leg and his body felt sore. Hiccup wondered if he had pushed himself too hard in dragon training again.

He reached up to rub his eyes when he finally realized why the roof was bothering him. Tightly bound thatch could be seen in the few streams of light coming in from the curtained doorway. The roof of Hiccup's room was wood, not thatch. Suddenly the events of the previous day unfolded in his cloudy mind.  
"Toothless!" Hiccup sat up with a shout.

The dragon was curled up next to him, sleeping soundly. His tail was stretched out awkwardly behind him. Hearing his rider's call, Toothless startled awake, blinking owlishly at the boy beside him.

Hiccup reached out and rested his hand on the dragon's neck. Toothless cooed softly in reassurance. After a few moments Hiccup pushed himself onto his feet, realizing that he had fallen asleep with his leg on last night. Rubbing ruefully at the sore stump, he shuffled over to saddlebags and extracted some smoked herring and lutefisk for breakfast. As he was digging through the bags, his cut his hand on the tailfin he had packed on a whim. He sucked on the injured finger as he pulled the tailfin and breakfast out.

The two ate breakfast in relative silence, the sounds of chewing and slurping filling the stone hut. When the food was finished Hiccup sat crossed leg in front of Toothless. "Is your tail worse than last night?"

Toothless laid his ears back and whined. The appendage was still stretched awkwardly behind the dragon, the splint weighing it down and keeping it relatively immobile.

"I was afraid of that," sighed Hiccup. "We won't be able to fly back until you're tail has healed. And there's no way I could sail back to Berk. With any luck, dad will come looking for us. But until then, I guess we're stuck here."

Toothless nodded solemnly, his eyes narrowed in what Hiccup assumed was determination. He laughed at the dragon.

"Well it's a good thing I brought this then," Hiccup held up the automatic tailfin that Toothless could control. The dragon laid his ears back and growled at the contraption. Hadn't he made his loyalty to his rider clear when he destroyed the last one?

"Toothless," Hiccup exasperatedly sighed, absent-mindedly scratching beneath the dragon's chin to soothe him. "I made another one for emergencies, bud. And it's a good thing to. We're alone out here and I want you to be able to fly without me in case something happens. Okay?"

Toothless gave a small growl before melting into his friend's touch. He had made his displeasure known, but he trusted the boy. Hiccup fixed the tailfin to his dragon, being careful of his injured tail. The process was long and exhausting for both Viking and dragon. When the tailfin was finally secure, both were panting. They lay in a heap on the floor for a few minutes before Hiccup stretched and pushed himself up onto sore legs.

With notebook in hand, the boy stumbled out into the early afternoon light. The sun was high in the sky over the island. The stone hut he and Toothless had made their home for the night was one of three still standing. Two more dwellings lay in crumbled piles of stone that had obviously been rummaged through over the years to patch the other three buildings. The other two huts still standing were much the same as Hiccup's. Inside, he found some more dry goods.

The site of the huts was on a hill above the rocky beach. A stone lined path led down to the beach where a ramshackle dock barely managed to keep from being swept out to sea with the receding tide.

Another path led out to the woods behind the huts on which Hiccup set off to explore the area. Several dozen strides up the path was a small structure. Inside was a wooden bench set over a hole. "At least there's a latrine," Hiccup mused to himself.

The wood was filled with tall fir trees and sparse underbrush. A few rams wandered over the rocky countryside. Hiccup marveled at the abandoned land as he explored. There were so many obvious signs of the life that must have gone on here. Where were the people who lived here? Who kept up the buildings Hiccup was exploring? Why had they gone?

The path wound around to the other side of the island before fading away into a sheer cliff over the sea. Waves crashed against the rocks below. "So it is an island, then?" Hiccup mused. He sat on a moss covered rock above the cliff and studied the map which he kept tucked into his tunic. Of the islands scattered about the map, Hiccup couldn't identify the one he was one. Bjorn had said all of the islands were inhabited. If he had made it to the trader's land, he should be able to see the rest of the archipelago on the horizon. To all sides, the only thing Hiccup could see was open water. With a sigh, Hiccup folded his map and put it away. There was nothing left to be done today except get an inventory on the dry goods stored in the huts. Refusing to be defeated by the uncertainty of his situation, Hiccup returned to his hut with a metaphorical spring in his step (there was no way he was going to bounce on his burnt stump).

Toothless greeted him on his way back with a happy bark. No sooner had Hiccup pushed the curtain back and stooped to enter the hut than Toothless had padded forward to nuzzle him. The dragon had missed Hiccup.

"Hey, Toothless," Hiccup smiled, "I found another hut with a larger entrance and inner room for you. We can move you there tonight."

Appeased for the moment, Toothless settled back to nap. His rider would take care of him later.

Hiccup began prying open the barrels and boxes stacked in the back of his hut. In his exuberance to open one particularly difficult barrel, Hiccup overbalanced himself and fell to his rear. Toothless twitched an ear at the noise but didn't wake.

"That's right, you useless dragon, sleep while I do all the hard work," muttered Hiccup beneath his breath.

Toothless cracked one eye open and hummed in reply. His ears twitched again for a moment before he settled back into sleep.

After nearly an hour of work Hiccup had opened all of the barrels and inventoried everything he had. There was enough smoked cod to last Hiccup for months. There were basic necessities such as rope, fishing gear, metal pots, and tools. Surprisingly, Hiccup found a tunic and trousers made out of some type of mottled grey skin that was soft to the touch and very smooth when he wrapped it around himself. The tunic and trousers were much bigger and heavier than was practical for Hiccup, he concluded that it was probably made for a larger Viking. They would need some modification if he was going to wear them.

Behind the barrels he found some carved runes. They were familiar to Hiccup and he recognized several figures from the runes back on Berk, but he couldn't puzzle out what they said. Pictures of men riding fantastical four-legged creatures with flowing hair and tails decorated the space beside the runes.

When evening came, Hiccup helped Toothless move into the bigger hut before the boy returned to his own. He curled up on his bedroll with his woolen cloak as a blanket and the large tunic as a pillow. After rewrapping his stump, he fell into a comfortable sleep.

 **Anglina: Well, another boring chapter.**

 **Arthur: More about the tunic and trousers set along with the fantastical four-legged creatures will be discovered in later chapters. She's trying to write Hiccup discovering things and failing at it.**

 **Angelina: Thank you Arthur, pessimistic about everything. Anyways, I hope you'll stick with me for another two chapters. There is definitely more drama ahead!**

**Thanks to my betas: Jojo and zvc56 (Aafia), you guys are wonderful and very kind to help me!  
**


	5. Learning to Live

Chapter 5: Learning to Live

It wasn't until the next day that Hiccup discovered the usefulness of the tunic and trousers. A breakfast of smoked fish had been stomached with only token complaints before Hiccup set out for a small stream of fresh water he had discovered while exploring with his bundle of clothes to wash and a wineskin to fill.

Most of his clothes had washed out well after his tumble to the earth. They were ripped in a few places and hopelessly stained in others, but they were still wearable. To his surprise, however, Hiccup found that the tunic and trousers he had rescued from the barrels didn't get wet when he tried to wash them in the stream. While he waited for his clothes to dry next to the fire back at his hut, he tinkered with the leather garments. After a little bit of experimentation, trimming away excess leather, and taking in the garments to fit him better, Hiccup had managed to construct a waterproof suit complete with mittens and soft-soled boots. He and Toothless raced down to the beach where Hiccup promptly threw himself into the waves. The cold was noticeable through his new clothing, but everything from his neck down miraculously stayed dry.

Fishing took a little bit of practice, but Berk's main export was fish. Hiccup soon had the activity down to a science. Up to his waist in the cold waters of the sea, he managed to wrangle in enough fresh fish to supplement Toothless' diet of smoked fish. Sometimes towards the end of his fishing Toothless would wade into the sea as well. Hiccup had a feeling that the cold helped to soothe the dragon's tail. Fishing always left him cold and numb. The small waves that beat against him sent shivers through his frame. As long as he was careful, however, the waves never found a way into his fishing suit and Hiccup stayed blessedly dry. He was always glad to leave the sea behind as he hauled his net of wriggling fish back to his hut.

While Hiccup waited for his bath water to heat in the metal pot on the hearth of the fire pit, he and Toothless ate their midday meal. Once the water was warm enough to bathe in, Hiccup attended to his hygiene. Being stranded on a strange island was no excuse to fall behind on keeping up his health. Gods did that thought sound crazy!

The afternoon was spent gathering and chopping wood for their fire. Occasionally Toothless would accompany him while he gathered sticks, mindful of his tail. The dragon was getting increasingly depressed about his limited mobility. The cut wood was carefully stacked inside his hut.

While the light was still good, Hiccup and Toothless basked in the sun. With Toothless grounded and Hiccup trying to keep them alive, they didn't have much time to spend together. An hour's nap in the sun had been commonplace on Berk, now it was seen as a luxury. Everyday the sun disappeared beyond the horizon sooner and the lengthening shadows of winter swallowed the island in their cold embrace.

When dusk fell, Hiccup returned to his hut for dinner of smoked fish and whatever roots and plants he had found that day. Toothless enjoyed a few more fresh fish with his dinner. After they were done eating, Hiccup told stories of life on Berk and wondered what everyone was doing until the fire was no more than glowing embers. Hiccup piled ash onto the embers, to keep them fresh for staring the morning fire, before he and Toothless retired for the evening.

Two weeks passed in the same routine. The time was wearing poorly on both rider and dragon. As the days grew colder and snow began to blanket the countryside, both couldn't help but think of the home they had left behind. They fell into long bouts of silence with each other.

To try and keep his spirits up, Hiccup would fish out his charcoal stick and sit down with his journal by the firelight at night. Sometimes if he had time, Hiccup would sketch the island. Sheep, rocks, and the sea dominated the sketchbook he had brought. Occasionally, he sketched the dragons of Berk. Two full pages were filled with a portrait of Astrid. The picture had taken the better part of an afternoon to finish and Hiccup was dismayed to see that his memory of his loved ones was off. Barely a fortnight away from his island, and Hiccup was already beginning to forget the curve of Astrid's nose or the plaiting of Stoic's beard. In a morose moment, Hiccup wondered how long it would be until he forgot what everyone looked like entirely.

As the days stretched on, Toothless became increasingly frustrated with his limited mobility. Hiccup's increasing homesickness made him short tempered with the cranky dragon. Some days they would ignore each other completely.

Before he went to bed each night, Hiccup kept track of the days spent on their island with tally marks scratched into the wall of his hut. Fifteen scratches stood out next to the mythical beasts with flowing hair. Hiccup almost couldn't believe he had passed over a fortnight alone on the island with no one but Toothless and half a dozen sheep for company. The boy was beginning to go stir crazy when everything finally changed.

On the afternoon of the 16th day, a ship appeared on the horizon. Hiccup was out on the back cliffs sketching a couple of puffins when he saw the smudge on the horizon. Every so often over the next two hours, he would look up from his sketch book to see if he could make out what it was. As the smudge grew nearer, he managed to identify it as a ship. A ship that was miraculously heading for his island. Forgetting his sketch, Hiccup pocketed his notebook and sprinted back across the island to his hut. His father had finally come.

 **Angelina: The tunic and trousers are made out of seal skin for anyone who was wondering. Also, short chapter is short.**

 **Arthur: It also lacks dialogue and satisfying action.**

 **Angelina: Yeah, ignore Arthur. For a muse, I swear he is the most annoying guide to ever get inspiration from.**

 **Arthur: You're welcome.**


	6. Back on Berk

Chapter 6: Back on Berk

Hiccup had been gone for four days when Stoic began to worry. They had agreed that Hiccup would return no later than three days after he left. He had missed the deadline Stoic had given him. As any worried parent, Stoic's mind was filled with any manner of horrible situations that could have befallen his son. The chieftain sat at one of the tables in the Great hall, a hunk of bread clutched in his fist as he mulled over what he should do about Hiccup. As Stoick's worry and anger began to seep through, the bread was absently crushed into crumbs.

Most of Berk's Vikings knew to steer clear of the great hall when their chief was in a rage. As soon as dinner had finished, the hall emptied quickly leaving Stoic alone to worry. Only Gobber stayed behind with their fearsome leader, immune to most of Stoic's fits after years of knowing the man.

"What am I going to do with him, Gobber?" Stoic asked his longtime friend as the man hobbled over with two tankards of mead.

"He could be out there, crashed on some deserted island with no way to get back," Stoic slammed his tankard down, mead sloshing over the rim and onto both Vikings.

"Let's not jump to conclusions just yet, Stoic." Gobber reasoned as he wiped his mead soaked hand on his tunic front. "The boy's as headstrong as you ever were. He's probably out there mapping islands or gods know what and forgot to come back on time. Hiccup's never been one for being on time."

"I swear to all the gods in Asgard, when that boy gets back, I'm never letting him leave again." Stoic swirled the last of his mead around at the bottom of his tankard. "What if he doesn't come back? What if something has happened?"

Gobber looked out at the pouring rain. From the sound of the storm outside, Thor was battling something mighty. "Give him another day. If he isn't back by then, send the boats out."

Stoic sighed, "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Goodnight, Gobber."

The next day passed agonizingly slow for Stoic. The chief tried to keep himself busy helping with the harvest and construction on the dragon barn. Most of the Vikings of Berk had their hands full hauling in the crop of grain, oats, and vegetables. Those who weren't helping with the harvest or the barn were preparing for the winter. The last of the spring wool had been carded and spun into thread. The weavers were working overtime to turn out warm clothing and blankets for the winter. A select number of yaks had been set aside for slaughter. Their fur would be woven into blankets and their skin tanned into leather for dragon saddles. The meat would be separated by the butcher and smoked to last the winter months.

It was a busy time of year for Berk and Stoic didn't know how many people he could spare to look for Hiccup. He desperately prayed that his son was somewhere out there fooling about and not in dire trouble. As Stoic labored through the day, he could not turn his thoughts away from Hiccup. Every time he heard a dragon in the sky above, he turned from his work hoping against hope that it was Hiccup returning home with a goofy smile and a thoroughly perplexing excuse as to why he was late. But every time Stoic turned to look, Hiccup wasn't there.

"Has he come back yet?" Astrid had questioned when she caught Stoic lingering at the dragon school.

Stoic sighed at the girl. "No."

"What are you going to do?" she asked as Stoic helped her feed the dragons.

The fish in Stoic's hand was crumbled by his grip, "I'm going to find him."

The day wore out and night crowded the sky. No one had seen Hiccup return and Stoic resolved to start looking for his missing son. The great hall was noisy with the conversations and laughter of tired Vikings sated with good food and drink after a long day's work. Stoic stood from his chair at the head of the hall and banged his tankard down on the table, the conversation fell away and all eyes turned to him. "As most of you know, Hiccup set out a few days ago for the trading lands. He hasn't returned."

A murmur ran through the gathered Vikings before a glare form Stoic silenced them. "Tomorrow I will be organizing a search for him. I will personally lead a ship out to the trading lands to find him. I need volunteers for a small crew, anyone who isn't busy with the harvest."

A few hands poked above the crowd and soon they owners stepped forward. Among the group was Gobber, "We're with you Stoic."

"Good. I need the dragon school to send out a small group of riders to scour the islands and make sure Hiccup didn't end up somewhere nearby," Stoic continued. "Astrid, you're in charge of organizing that."

The Viking teen nodded from her place in the crowd, already running through names of people she trusted to look for Hiccup. She'd sell her soul to Hel before gave up looking for Hiccup.

"Spitelout is in charge until I get back. The ship sails at dawn," Stoic swept out of the great hall. The giant doors slammed in his wake.

The walk to his house seemed to stretch forever as Stoic thought through everything he'd need to get together for the search party. Somewhere out there his son was lost and needed him. For most of the boy's life Stoic hadn't been there for him, he'd be damned if he lost him when their relationship was finally on the mend.

Stoic spent a few hours tossing and turning in bed before rising early to prepare for the journey. Gobber met him on the docks with a few other volunteers and helped him load the ship. "We'll find him, Stoic."

Stoic nodded in return, the cold mask of the chief firmly in place over the worried frown of a father. He silently finished preparations before shoving off. Dawn was just breaking over the sea stacks as the ship glided almost soundlessly out to sea. Overhead the dragons passed by, heading out to the north and west.

Stoic stood at the rudder of his best ship, determination twisting his features into hard lines. He would find his son.

 **Angelina: And now you get to see Berk's reaction.**

 **Arthur: Astrid will come into the story more later, right now we're mainly focused on the father/son dichotomy of the story.**

 **Angelina: Yes, I promise that this will get more interesting!**


	7. Viking Ships

Chapter 7: Viking Raids

The sound of ships drawing closer to the shore startled Toothless from his afternoon nap. He padded out of his hut to see the vague outline of a ship coming towards their island through the sea fog. The dragon's ears perked up, maybe rescue had come? He hugged the side of the hut as the wind blew by, hoping to get a better view of the incoming ship. A gust of wind caught Toothless upside his face and the dragon's hope faltered. The scent the breeze carried from the ship was foreign.

Not sure what to make of this strange smelling ship, the dragon's ears flattened against his head and he sank down on his haunches. Toothless crouched behind one of the huts, ready to make a dash for the treeline at a moment's notice. No sooner had he concealed himself, than Toothless heard the distinctive clank of Hiccup's leg as the boy ran down the path to their huts. What was the boy thinking?!

Hiccup charged out onto the beach, arms waving frantically over his head. "Dad! Dad!"

A large figure launched itself over the side of the boat. Hiccup ran forward into the surf, arms still waving manically. "Dad! It's about time you came! What, did you get lost?!"

The large figure advanced towards Hiccup an axe gripped aggressively in his hands and a smooth helm guarding his face. Waves crashed and broke against the figure, but he wasn't moved. Hiccup stumbled back, slipping in the sea. The figure continued to advance, a shout to Thor rising from his lips.

"Dad?" with a cry Hiccup fell onto his rear as his feet lost their battle for traction. He scooted backwards from the large viking before desperately scrambling back onto his feet and bolting up the beach. The viking lunged after Hiccup, a meaty arm reaching out to savagely throw him down. The boy tumbled head over heels into the shallows with a scream, "Toothless!"

A roar rose from Toothless' throat as he leapt from his hiding place. A plasma bolt shot from his mouth and knocked the axe from the viking's hands. The dragon bounded down the beach towards his rider, ignoring the shooting pains from his tail. No one threatened his rider.

"Dreki! Dreki!" the vikings in the boat yelled. Hiccup was hauled kicking and screaming against the chest of his attacker as he charged through the waters with an unholy yell.

Toothless crashed wildly into the sea after them. Teeth managed to latch onto Hiccup's sheepskin vest for a brief moment. The boy was nearly pulled from the grip of the larger Viking before the man gave a savage yank and the vest tore. Toothless stumbled back with a mouthful of sheepskin as Hiccup was hauled over the side of the Viking ship by numerous hands. The dragon reared on his hind legs and shot another plasma bolt at the ship. Grating and splintering wood filled the air with a deafening crash, nearly overtaking the desperate shouts of the Vikings and the roar of the dragon as he reared up to shoot again. The Vikings on the ship crouched down on the deck, fearful of the black creature attacking them.

The gas had collected in Toothless' throat when the wave caught him by surprise. Pulled under briefly by the current, Toothless was buffeted tail over head towards the shore. When he finally corrected and bounded out of the water again to launch himself at the ship, he was hopelessly wet and his fire gone. He bounded after the ship, his teeth snapping at the bow as both dragon and vikings struggled to clear the breakers. With one last desperate attempt, Toothless launched himself out of the sea. Black scales and fierce claws cut a mighty arc through the air towards the ship. Right before he landed on the deck, two oars connected solidly with the side of his head and neck. Toothless sailed through the air before slamming back into the water with a great splash.

"No! Toothless! Toothless!" Hiccup's cries were lost amidst the triumphant whoops of his Viking captors. The ship cleared the breakers and made for the open sea.

The sea carried Toothless' battered body back to shore, water swirling around his form as he lay on the beach. Curled up onto his side in the sand, his injured tail curled protectively into his body; Toothless' mournful cries pursued the shrinking form of the ship that had stolen his best friend.

 **Angelina: First off, Vikings didn't actually have horns on their helmets. That's an invention by the Victorians during the Viking Revival in art.**

 **Arthur: Also, most Viking longships had very shallow bottoms to handle sailing up rivers, so getting as close to shore as they did is perfectly plausible and features in one of the foremost theories of the harbour construction of the great Viking trade towns.**

 **Angelina: Thank you for the history lesson there, Arthur. Dreki is the term in Old Norse used for dragons.**

 **Arthur: Hopefully we'll have an update up in a week or two. Apologies for the short chapter, at least you finally get to the part of the story that the summary hinted at.**


	8. A Land Far, Far Away

Chapter 8: A Land Far, Far Away

The world swam in a diluted mess of colour and darkness before Hiccup's eyes. The rough motion of the boat as it rode choppy waves did little to soothe the nausea roiling in his stomach. Pain pulsed behind Hiccup's eyes in rhythm with the tossing ship. He tried to moan, but his tongue felt too large in his mouth. When he tried to move, uncooperative limbs could do no more than flop weakly against the slick wood of the ship's deck.

Ship. That's right. He was on a ship. Wasn't he? Yes, when he thought about it, he could vaguely remember a raid. The echoes of mournful cries haunted his mind. "T'less," he slurred.

Above him a harsh noise drummed incessantly. It almost sounded like shouting. His father had come to wake him up; he must have slept in again. No, that wasn't right. He was on a ship. Stoick wasn't here. Hiccup moaned drunkenly as the world dimmed to gray and then everything went black.

When Hiccup next journeyed back into the waking world, his headache had dulled from a splitting pain to a dull throb. Green eyes blinked open and Hiccup was faced with a view of dark, wet wood. The side of his face and his nose was smooshed awkwardly into the planking.

With a groan, Hiccup tried to roll over onto his back. He bit back another moan when hands he hadn't realized were bound behind his back dug into his spine and strained his sore shoulders. "Wa' 'appnd? He slurred.

Someone shouted unintelligible garble at him before a hand clamped around his upper arm and hauled him onto legs that had long lost any feeling. As soon as the hand released him, he fell back onto the deck and curled onto his side. Laughter surrounded him.

Hiccup was hauled to his feet again and shoved forward into someone else's hands. Through the curtain of hair that had fallen over his eyes, Hiccup saw men dressed in an assortment of died wool and leather armor unloading goods into waiting carts in the surf. The ship bobbed nauseatingly with the waves where it was tied to its mooring post. Arms stretched over the side of the ship and grabbed Hiccup. The boy was hauled over the side, clipping his trailing ankle painfully on the edge of a shield mounted to the ship. His feet connected with the waves and he was pushed forward towards another man. Hiccup stumbled along, barely avoiding crashing to his knees in the ocean.

Two meaty hands grabbed his upper arms and propelled him out of the ocean towards the land. Vaguely Hiccup was aware of someone cutting away the ropes binding his hands and fastening cold shackles to his wrists. He was forced to sit with the rest of the captives and goods on a wooden pier running along the shore. His head was swimming with the flurry of activity and an undercurrent of panic. Hiccup had no idea where he was or who had taken him. His mind reeled with questions through the haze of whatever herbs he had been given. Glancing about him, Hiccup saw a man and a girl around his age huddled together to his right. The shackles that bound his wrist connected to the two captives and then to an iron wring anchored into a post.

The man and girl whispered to each other in a lilting language. The tone was softer than Hiccup was used to hearing back on Berk. A few of the words were familiar to Hiccup, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Where are we?" he asked the two.

Neither the girl or the man stopped their hushed conversation to reply to him. Hiccup sighed.

Finally, the ship was unloaded and the men began to haul away the goods around Hiccup. The large man who had captured him back on the island hauled Hiccup and the other two captives to their feet. He took the leading chain in both his meaty hands while another Viking brought up the read. Together, the two Vikings marched their captives into town.

An ocean of wood greeted the group as the wound their way through a confusing labyrinth of buildings and wooden walkways. Hiccup had never seen so many houses and shops in one place. People bustled about their lives and trades everywhere around him. Different languages and foreign words created a constant buzz of noise.

The men stopped the group of captives in front of a small wood and thatch building. A cart pulled by a barrel chested animal with four legs stood outside the building. The creature had a long tail and flowing hair falling from its neck. Hiccup wondered if this was the fantastical beast he saw carved into the wall of his hut back on the island.

"Hord, Thrandr!" the man leading the group yelled as the door to the building banged open.

"Aye. Aye, we're coming," a boy much larger than Hiccup soothed as he stood stooped in the doorway. He bustled out quickly and propelled the three captives inside the dimly lit building.

There was a workbench up against one wall with bits of iron on it. Along the far wall straw pallets lay with iron anchors secured into the wall posts above them. A gaunt boy sat on one of the pallets, watching the proceedings with a vacant expression. Behind them the two men stooped into the building, momentarily blocking out the sunlight with his large frame.

Quickly the four Viking men set about removing the running chain from the shackles on the captives' wrists. Hiccup was herded away to the workbench by Thrandr, the large Viking boy. The metal bits that Hiccup had seen laying on it when he had entered the building moments before turned out to be hammered iron collars. Despite Hiccup's renewed struggles one of the collars was set about his neck and twisted shut with a startling finality.

A chain was attached to the collar at his neck and then through the shackles on his wrist. The chain was yanked and Hiccup was pulled forward with a cry, hunched over to alleviate some of the pressure on his neck. He was led over to the pallet next to the gaunt boy and his chain was fastened to a wall anchor. Thrandr gave the chain a good tug, seemingly satisfied with the security of the anchor and moved to help one of the other Viking men secure the captive woman.

Finally the other two captives were secured to the wall next to Hiccup. The four Vikings stood over their captives. Hord walked down the line of captives, staring appraisingly at each. He stopped in front of Hiccup and grabbed his chin, turning his head to either side. Hiccup glared back at him with defiance.

"It's thin and crippled. How many winters has it seen?" Hord asked the two Viking men from the ship.

One of them shrugged, "Don't know. We took it from a Dreki's nest out on the islands."

Hord looked surprised at the news before turning back to Hiccup, "Can't be more than fifteen winters, Odin knows how it survived the Dreki. I'll give you three ounces of gold, no more."

"It's worth at least five," one of the Vikings from the ship growled.

Hord released Hiccup's chin and stood to his full height, "I don't negotiate, ye know that." He held the other Vikings' glares until they backed down. With a satisfied huff, Hord moved down the line. Hiccup watched in a disbelieving haze as the Viking evaluated the other captives before handing over gold and hack silver to the Vikings from the ship.

Hiccup had heard tales growing up on Berk of barbarians and slave traders from distant lands and he knew that several of the other tribes on the Barbaric archipelago practiced slavery. There was no question in his mind that these Vikings were slave traders. What person would pay money for another human being with so little regard for their humanity?

A dark ball of fear twisted around his stomach as Hord and Thrandr discussed taking them to market the next day. What nightmare had he found himself in?

 **Angelina: There you go, a longer chapter to make up for last week's shorter one. I'm basing Hiccup's people more off of the Norse-Gaels than the actual Vikings. This is why Hiccup could understand a few words of the other captives' speech (I have these two captives coming from Northeast Ireland, likely where the ship that captured Hiccup had been raiding).**

 **Angelina: The trading town in this chapter is based off of the Kaupang in Skiringssal. This was an early Norwegian trading town during the Viking Age. Even though I am borrowing the setting from Norway, most of the resources available that I have read (including the proses and laws) are from Iceland. So this will be a weird mix between different influences.**

 **Arthur: I really doubt anyone cares.**

 **Angelina: Thanks Arthur. The reason why the traders referred to Hiccup as in "it" is because thralls in Viking times were a class of people without rights. When people spoke of thralls, they used the neuter "gender" instead of the masculine "gender" for nouns. Hence the it (closest thing we have in English).**

 **Arthur: Congratulations to anyone who actually read that.**


	9. Into Slavery

Chapter 9: Into Slavery

The next morning came early. Hord and Thrandr woke their captives with the rattling of chains before even Sól had begun her journey across the sky. Hiccup was fed a bowl of mush which he hurriedly crammed into his mouth. Next, each of the captives were given a bucket of water to wash up with. Once everyone was groomed to Hord's liking, the captives were ushered outside.

Thrandr sat outside the building with a cart hitched to the barrel-chested mystical beast. Hord tugged Hiccup and the other three captives into the back of the cart and carefully secured them. Once everyone was tied down to the cart, Hord clambered up front to sit next to Thrandr and the cart lurched into movement.

They had only been rattling down the street for a few minutes when the gaunt boy Hiccup had been chained next to spoke to him, "What's your name?"

"My name's Hiccup, son of Stoick," Hiccup gave a more formal introduction, unsure of how to act. His shackled hands began to pick at the fraying hem of his shirt.

"I'm called Onundr the Gaunt," the gaunt boy offered without prompting. "How did you end up here?"

"They took me from my home," Hiccup tried to keep his voice from sounded small and young.

Onundr sniffed disgustedly at the smell of pigs as they passed a meat market, "I was a freeman's son too, once upon a time."

"What happened?" Hiccup prompted, eager to find out more about the one person who had treated him like a human since his capture.

"One of the men in my village tried to force himself on me so I slew him. My family couldn't afford to pay the reparations so I was made a thrall and traded up the coast," Onundr picked at his teeth, his face set into a purposefully blank mask.

"Wow, that's awful," Hiccup wasn't sure which part of Onundr's story to be the most horrified at. These people were so strange, so different from what Hiccup knew. Berk hadn't seen a murder in almost two generations.

Before Onundr could continue his conversation, the cart bounced to a stop outside of a central market. All around people were setting up benches with wares to sell. As Thrandr secured the cart, Hord pulled Hiccup, Onundr, and the other thralls out of the cart.

The four were ushered up onto wooden blocks in the market place and the running chain between them was removed. Hiccup's tunic was untied and maneuvered over the collar around his neck. He was left bare-chested and shivering in the brisk autumn morning.

Once the captives' clothing was removed down to their smallclothes the running chain was reattached to their collars. Hord and Thrandr each secured one end of the chain to posts, promising to wrench all of their necks out should someone try to run.

People swarmed around Hiccup and the other thralls, poking and prodding at their bodies. Hiccup had never felt more like an object at any other time in his life. Even if Berk had considered him a nuisance for the majority of his life, Hiccup was still a person to them.

One man forced Hiccup's mouth open to inspect his teeth. The taut chain at his neck was the only thing keeping him from biting the man. All around Hiccup people talked about him and the other thralls.

"This one ain't got a limb. I could nae use it," one commented loudly about Hiccup as his metal leg was tapped.

A woman with wide hips and a weathered face inspected Onundr, "It's a sickly one, cannae be worth more than four ounces."

Hord countered her offer, "It's seen many 'arsh winters, knows how to werk 'em too. Seven ounces of gold and no less."

The woman seemed to consider this for a moment before handing over a bag of hack silver. Hord carefully measured out the woman's offer on his scale before unhooking Onundr's collar from the running chain and handing the boy over.

"I'll give ye six ounces fer the concubine," one man offered Thrandr.

Hearing his offer, Hord again weighed out the offered gold on his scale. "This only come' out to five ounces."

The man grumbled in reply before handing over a silver bracelet. Thrandr took the bracelet and carefully shaved off the required amount, adding the hack silver to the scale when he was done. Hord double-checked the weight before declaring a sale.

Hiccup watched out of the corner of his vision as the woman from the ship was handed over. His stomach twisted at the thought of what would be awaiting her as a concubine. Without realizing it, the boy's eyes had filled with tears that threatened to spill. Biting his lip in concentration, Hiccup turned his head to the sky and watched smoke from the town climb to meet the clouds. He sniffled lightly and closed his eyes. A cold breeze dried the tears at the corner of his eyes and Hiccup focused on the cold numbing his bare chest and hands to keep from crying.

The man who had inspected his mouth was circling him now, poking at his shoulder muscles before stooping to evaluate his prosthetic. Hiccup had never felt more vulnerable than in the center of this crowd as they picked apart his physical wellbeing and estimated his worth. Finally the man seemed done with his evaluation and turned to Hord, "Five ounces fer the boy."

Hord looked the man up and down for a moment before weighing his gold. Satisfied with the quality, the Viking unclipped Hiccup's collar and allowed the man to lead him off.

A strong hand curled around Hiccup's bicep and another holding the smaller chain attached to the boy's collar insured he had very little maneuverability. Hiccup was deposited in the back of a wagon along with a few barrels of mead, a sack of lumpy vegetables, and a trunk of some sort into which the man threw his pouch of gold. His chain was attached to the iron handle of the trunk.

The wagon lurched out of the town, leaving behind the noise and bustling activity. The beast pulling the wagon picked its way carefully over the pitted road as they traveled up the coast. The landscape surrounding them still held the last hints of summer greenery. Rocks jutted out over the rolling hills and the waves crashing against the cliffs below them created ambient noise. Gulls and puffins occasionally flew overhead as the wagon bounced along the path. Hiccup watched the town grow smaller and smaller on the horizon. How was his father going to find him now?

 **Angelina: Dang, ended two chapters in a row with a question, I need to work on varying my sentences. For anyone who's curious, a thrall is basically just the Viking term for a slave.**

 **Arthur: Is this story getting too lost in the historical detail or do you guys actually like this stuff?**


	10. The Master's House

Chapter 10: A New Life

After nearly a half day traveling, the wagon finally lurched to a stop outside a large longhouse. Even though it was still in the early afternoon, the sun was sinking low behind the longhouse. The fields around the farm lay barren as livestock grazed in pastures.

The man to whom Hiccup now belonged clambered down from the wagon and circled around back. He shouted up to the longhouse and a woman jogged out to meet them. The man hefted the trunk to which Hiccup's chain was attached and dragged it out of the wagon. The boy followed as the chain jerked on his collar. Hiccup's ankle caught in the wheel well on his way down and he sprawled in the muddy ground. From where his face was smooshed into the soft earth, Hiccup watched as the woman from the longhouse untangled his ankle and removed the bruised limb from the twisted grip of the wagon. She hauled Hiccup to his feet.

"Hedda," the man addressed the woman as he unlatched Hiccup's chain from the trunk. "the boy's here to replace Olaf. Take it inside."

"Ja. I send oot Snortr und Skili to help," Hedda called over her shoulder as she frog-marched Hiccup up to the longhouse.

The house was long and considerably large for a single family. The roof was covered in patches of summer greenery as dirt walls sloped down to meet a stone foundation. A wooden door was framed by a wall of stone, holding up one end of the turf roof. Berk's position on a cliff and abundant use of cave systems and lumber had made the ancient construction of turf houses obsolete. It was only in the village stories and myths of heroes long since passed that the image of the large houses of grass, dirt, and stone had survived. Hiccup marveled at the primitive yet effective construction of the farm's great house.

Hedda released Hiccup arms to open the heavy wood door and shove him inside. The interior was dimly lit and filled with the sounds of domestic life. The scratching of wool carders mixed with the squawks of geese, and the baying of a milk goat, and the loud howl of a fluffy creature with a long snout and a lolling tongue.

A long corridor stretched down the length of the building, flanked on either side by wooden benches built around floor-to-ceiling support columns. In the middle of the room a gaggle of women and girls sat around a central fire, carding wool, snapping beans, and preparing meat for the evening meal.

"Snortr, Skili!" Hedda bellowed as she slammed the door behind them against the wind and chill outside.

A young boy with wide gray eyes and broad shoulders materialized next to Hedda. Hiccup started nervously at his sudden appearance.

"Where Skili?" Hedda demanded as she rounded on the boy.

"He's with die svín," Skili replied, gesturing towards the door.

Hedda heaved a frustrated sigh, "Ja, can't be h'lped. Go h'lp Master Sigfred unload vagninn."

Skili scampered out the door without another word, large feet squelching in the churned up mud. Hedda shut the door behind him before latching on to Hiccup's arms again. She marched him down the long corridor, around the gaggle of women, and back to a smaller corridor that branched off from the main one. This corridor was set lower in the ground, but the main walls were still lined with benches and support columns. There was a fire pit in the center of the room over which a sheep flank was roasting.

A girl with plaited brown hair and blue eyes was bent over a quern, grinding wheat. Her back was hunched in exertion as she turned the handstone. Hedda shoved Hiccup into the room before turning to the girl, "Geirhildr!"

The girl at the quern stopped grinding and sprang to her feet. "Ja, Hedda?"

"It needs tunic. Dann back to verk." Hedda instructed the girl while she led Hiccup over to an empty bench. "Ye sleep her'," she gestured to the empty bench.

"Send him oot vhen you are done," Hedda called to Geirhildr. Hiccup started at the order. He had just been addressed as a human being for the first time since coming to this strange land. Overwhelmed with his new surroundings and conflicting emotions, the boy sank onto the bench he had been assigned. The rough slab of wood was quite wide, but a good bit shorter than his height. A support column at his feet and another at his head separated his bench from the others lining this wall.

Geirhildr approached him warily, a tunic in her hands. She dropped the garment in Hiccup's lap without a word and went back to her quern. The sound of stones grinding wheat filled the small space. Hiccup watched her for a few moments before tugging the tunic over his head. The fabric caught on his collar and the boy struggled to maneuver it over the ghastly piece of iron. When the tunic finally was free, it tumbled down to below Hiccup's knees and the sleeves swallowed his hands whole. Hiccup tugged the laces at the neckline and sides as tight as they would go and rolled the sleeves up. The cloth was itchy against his skin and the dirty colour was one he had come to associate with undyed wool.

Almost as soon as he had finished adjusting the tunic, Geirhildr guided him out of the longhouse to stand blinking in the dimming twilight. The sun had almost fallen below the horizon and the moon was already climbing into the sky. Darkness was falling over the bustling farm.

"B'y!" Hedda's shrill and heavily accented voice cut through the farm. Hiccup jumped in surprise before hurrying over to the hefty woman's side where she stood next to a wagon. A larger man on top of the wagon was handing down a dense mass of dirt. Skili stood beside Hedda, helping to haul the dirt to a smaller turf house protruding from the side of the main turf house.

Hedda dumped several squares of dirt into Hiccup's arms and pushed him towards the smaller turf house. The dirt stank horribly of a bog and, after several armloads, Hiccup realized the stuff was peat. The stuff wasn't used often in Berk because of the abundance of wood and the scarcity of bogs, but one of the neighboring tribes relied heavily on it. Hiccup allowed his thoughts to wander as he and Skili ran the peat up to the house, racing against nightfall before the wagon was finally emptied.

As the small group trudged back to the main house, Hiccup tried in vain to wipe off the filth that was now staining his tunic. The night meal was served without much excitement. After chewing on salted pork, some stale bread, and slurping down some mead Hiccup was exhausted. In a daze Hiccup barely registered Geirhildr leading him off to bed. He was shoved down onto his bench and automatically curled up into a ragged skin that someone had laid out for him.

Hiccup stared blankly at the dirt wall his bench was built into. It seemed hard to believe that just this morning he had stood on the auction block in the center of an unknown trading center. Hiccup sniffled slightly as his thoughts flew back to Berk and his family. He hoped his father would come and take him away from this nightmare. His eyes slipped closed unbidden and he fell into a dreamless sleep as his physical and emotional exhaustion took hold.

 **Angelina: Hiccup's new home is based off of the reconstructed Viking farm at Stong in Iceland.**

 **Arthur: Stong was buried in the 1104 eruption of Mt. Hekla so it fits perfectly into our time frame for the story.**

 **Angelina: The dialect I'm experimenting with is my own stereotypical swenglish pronunciation and a mixture of German and Icelandic words. One of the reasons some of these words aren't translated for you is because Hiccup would have spoken a Norse-Gael dialect and wouldn't have picked up on all of the Norse words and accents. I know very little Icelandic, but do speak some German so I'm favouring the German side.**

 **Arthur: We had a really hard time churning out a chapter this week. However, we managed to pull together this chapter and next week's chapter. Hopefully the story is still intriguing for you guys, we have a ways to go yet.**


	11. Desperate Acts

Chapter 11: Desperate Acts

The first week of Hiccup's captivity passed in a similar manner. Hedda, whom he later learned was the overseer of the thralls, kept him engaged in manual labour. He was forced to haul water from the well on a shoulder yoke. When his shoulder muscles and back felt like they would be shredded by the constant strain, Hedda moved him over to churning. Milk from the goats that Geirhildr tended to was turned into a lumpy butter under his inexperienced hands.

Occasionally he would help Skili unload peat and iron nodules from the wagons coming in from the bogs. Two larger male thralls whom Hiccup had yet to learn the names of were harvesting the last a nearby peat bog before the weather turned too cold. Skili told him in snatches as they hauled the stinking peat that normally such tasks would have been finished in the late summer, but a fire in their peat stores had set them back two moons.

When the day's work was finally down, Hiccup would sink exhausted into his place on the outer ring of the night meal. Occasionally he would hear Sigfred and his wife Alfhild converse with their children and siblings about life in the nearby town and the coming winter. The best Hiccup could figure, there were four families living together in the longhouse.

At the end of the night meal, Hiccup would fall exhausted into his bed, praying to no god in particular for dreams of home. The morning would bring a repeat of the day before.

On the eighth day of his captivity, Hiccup saw on opening. Sigfred had sent him, Snortr, and Hedda two hours south towards the town Hiccup had come from to repair stacked stone fences around the perimeter of their farm. To make the walk down to the fence in good time, the two thralls and the overseer were required to be up before the day-meal. Hedda had made sure there was enough food for the day packed away into leather satchels that each of the thralls carried at their hips along with a wineskin each of mead.

As they wound their way down the path towards the southern perimeter fence, Hiccup had noticed the road back into town paralleling them. A plan began to form in his head. He had enough food and mead to last him two days if he stretched it. All he had to do was wait for a moment where he could slip away unnoticed and then run as if Surt himself was behind him with his flaming sword.

They were nearing the fence, Snortr and Hedda a small distance ahead of him when Hiccup finally put his plan to action. The boy dropped back some more and the two kept walking, not paying much attention to him. Hiccup dropped back behind a low hill before cutting over to the road. With his heart pounding in his throat at the thought of getting caught, Hiccup scrambled across the road. On the other side the road sloped down towards the ocean. Hiccup stumbled down the bank and ran along the lower rocks. It was a hard scramble that sent bits of scree clattering down to the water, but it was too low to be seen from across the road. If he could just get some distance between him and Hedda, he might be able to climb back up to the road.

Hiccup continued to follow the lower rock line for a ways before scrambling back up the bank. He lay just below the level of the road for several minutes, listening intently for any sounds of pursuit. When nothing but the wind and distant bleating of sheep sounded, Hiccup climbed back onto the road.

His heart was still hammering in his ribcage and his hands were torn from his desperate scramble across sharp rocks. Hiccup started walking along the road at an easy pace, hoping to catch his breath back. His torn hand fumbled at the belt holding his lunch and wineskin before finally managing to unhook the skin. Hiccup gulped at the mead, thankful for something to soothe his dry and irritated throat. A noise behind the boy could be heard over the wind and Hiccup paused as he tried to wedge the cap back into the wineskin. It sounded again. The wineskin now forgotten in his hand, Hiccup looked over his shoulder to see where the noise was coming from.

He was blindsided by Hedda. The two fell to the road in a bundle of rags, sloshing mead, and loud oaths. The struggle lasted only a minute before Hedda had Hiccup's wildly bucking form trapped beneath her. She sat on the boy until his struggles ceased and he sagged panting into the mud around him. As soon as the fight left Hiccup, Hedda hauled him up by his iron collar and shook him like the rag doll he used to play with.

"See this, b'y?" she demanded as she shoved him away roughly by the collar. Hiccup fell back to the ground with a cry, one hand flying up to his bruised neck and the other to protect his head. Hedda loomed over him, nostrils flared wide and small eyes glinting dangerously. She grabbed his collar again and hauled him up to his knees by it, "this is our sign of slav'ry. No one h'lp ye, b'y, if ye wear this."

She let Hiccup sag back to the ground and squatted beside him, "ve have no rights before die law, der master. Ye are thrall. Get th't through yer head, b'y."

After a moment Hedda hooked her arm around Hiccup's and hauled him to his feet, "up, we have verk to do. Ye have to verk if ye vant to keep yer place."

Hiccup was marched back along the road, dismayed to see that he had only made it but a quarter of a mile before being caught. Hedda put him straight to work, a stern eye on him at all times. Snortr said very little as Hedda directed him to the easier tasks and left much of the hauling to Hiccup. Soon the boy's arms shook with the weight of stone slabs as he handed each individual piece to Hedda and Snortr to set into the wall with practiced hands and expert eyes.

When the group packed up to make the trip back to the longhouse, Hedda made sure Hiccup bore the heaviest tools. As they trekked through the rolling landscape and jutting rocks, Hedda kept Hiccup behind Snortr and in front of her. The sun was setting before they made it back to the longhouse. Without a word, Snortr took the tools and lumbered inside. Hedda remained outside with Hiccup, hands on her wide hips and eyes glinting with anger, "Yer new b'y, ye've got ta learn yer place. I give ye this one time, but ye do it again and I vill tell master Sigfred. Ye'll be h'lping Herbjorn fer quarter moon oot cutting peat. Ye von't have die energy to do much else."

The next few days were passed in agony. Every morning Hiccup was forced out of bed before dawn and handed a meal of dry bread and some variety of salted meat. He had to help Herbjorn hitch the mystical beast with flowing hair and tail to a wagon and then they'd be off with the first light of Sól. They spent the day far to the northwest in a bog that grew increasingly cold with the day. Herbjorn was a large and very serious man. He spoke very little and eyed Hiccup with eyes that had long gone dead.

Herbjorn taught Hiccup how to cut off the first few inches of greenery on the top of the bog to expose the turf below. While Herbjorn cut out blocks of peat, Hiccup shifted through the greenery for nodules of iron which he collected in a bucket. He also learned how to lay out and dry the peat before it was to be taken back to the wagon.

After a day of nonstop cutting and hauling, Hiccup's back was in knots and his arms cramped. He had trouble standing straight and now knew why Herbjorn had a permanent slump to his back. They ride back to the longhouse was passed in silence. Skili or Snortr were usually waiting to help unload the peat.

Once everything was squared away Hiccup would stumble into the house for the evening meal. He ate quickly under the watchful eye of Hedda before falling into bed, utterly exhausted and dreading the next morning. Nearly a week passed in the same fashion before Hedda finally had pity on him.

Hiccup was roused from his bed by the rough shaking of Hedda's calloused hand. "I'm up, I'm up," he mumbled as his hands automatically fumbled for his tunic and belt in the darkness.

Hedda watched him get dressed impassively. "B'y!" she called and watched in satisfaction as Hiccup's head dipped and his shoulders rounded out at her sharp command.

"Yes?" he questioned tentatively, twisting his overly large sleeve in his hands.

"Ye are verking with Skili today, ve are in need of goatherd," Hedda nearly smiled at the relief that coursed visibly through Hiccup. "I trust ye know yer place now, und if ye need another lesson, Herbjorn always needs h'lp. Master Sigfred is gut man. So long as ye verk, he will take care of ye. Fishbone b'y like ye should be grateful master Sigfred found ye."

Hiccup stared at the ground, biting back the sharp retort on the tip of his tongue. He may have been cowed, but the woman had yet to break him. Haddocks were made of sterner stuff. He settled with nodding at the overseer.

Hedda looked Hiccup up and down with a critical eye, "someone must have loved ye, b'y." There was contempt in her voice.

"A lot of people have said that," Hiccup replied wearily. He was beyond the point of trying to remain civil.

"An'one but sentimental fool would h've l'ft you ta the elements. Runt of litter?" she questioned.

"First born, actually," Hiccup had a sinking feeling he knew what the woman was referring to. Sometimes when a sickly child was born and deemed not strong enough to survive, the parents would leave them out in the open to die of exposure. While Berk had abandoned the practice nearly half a century before Hiccup's birth, other Viking tribes in the Barbaric archipelago still held to it.

Hedda threw back her head in laughter, "Ye were really loved."

Hiccup scowled. "I guess I was."

The early morning passed quickly. Before any of the other thralls were even up, Hedda had Hiccup fetching water and running tasks. When the sun finally lit up the sky with hues of pink and orange, Hedda released Hiccup to his day of work.

"Get to verk with ye then." Her final command of the morning chilled Hiccup to the core, "And remember yer place b'y, remember what ye are now."

 **Angelina: Well, that chapter got away from me.**

 **Arthur: It was a bit longer than we intended.**

 **Angelina: Hiccup is such a spirited and independent boy that I figured he would make a break for it sometime. And even after serving a physically challenging and demeaning punishment I figured that he would still have some spark in him.**

 **Arthur: We're trying to keep this thing in character, interesting, and historically accurate.**

 **Angelina: Hopefully we're doing a good job and you guys still like this story.**

 **Arthur: Thank you to everyone who have been leaving reviews for us, we really appreciate people who take the time to do that!**

 **Angelina: If you wouldn't mind taking just a minute to leave your thoughts either by review or PM, that would be greatly appreciated. Your feedback helps me to make this story better.**


	12. The Search Continues

Chapter 12: The Search Continues

Astrid sat out on the wooden walkways of Berk, watching as the silhouette of a ship grew larger and larger against the horizon. The sky above flashed with lightning and poured buckets of freezing rain down on the lone girl, but she refused to return to her home until she knew if Hiccup was coming home on that ship.

It had been a fortnight since the men and women of Berk had set sail in search of Hiccup and one by one the ships had returned empty handed. Stoick's ship was the last to return and Astrid continued to cling to the hope that if anyone could find Hiccup, it would be his father.

The teens had already been out twice that week with their dragons, scouring the neighboring islands for any sign of their lost friend. They had returned the night before empty-handed. Their parents had held them back for a few days to rest and refuel, but as soon as they were allowed back they would be gone again.

Astrid let her legs dangle over the side of the walkway, swinging in the breeze. She kept her eyes fixed on the ship, smiling nervously as it made the final turn into the relatively sheltered bay. As soon as it grew close enough to warrant using the oars to steer the rest of the way, Astrid hauled herself up and ran down the winding path to the docks. The horn announcing returning ships blared through the village as she recklessly sped towards the bay.

Skidding to a halt on the dock, Astrid watched as the oarmen carefully brought the ship into the shallows. Stoick's bulk launched over the side of the ship and tied off the boat to its mooring post. He turned to the shore and Astrid watched his eyes narrow at the sight of her standing on the dock. Stoick shook his head slightly and Astrid felt her face fall and her eyes well up.

Turning on her heel, Astrid fled back into the village. She passed the whispering villagers with a glare and determination not to let any tears fall.

Stoick watched her go. He heaved a great sigh as he turned to help his men unload their ship.

"No luck then?" Gobber's question startled Stoick from his thoughts.

He turned to see the blacksmith standing behind him in the shallows with a cart, "No. The other ships?"

Gobber looked down at the cart he was loading, "No."

Stoick heaved another sigh, "let's get this unloaded and then tell the village."

The men unloaded the ship quickly and trudged up to the great hall. The smell of roasting pig and fish signaled a great meal for the returning sailors. Gobber fell into stride beside Stoick as they both wound their way up to the hall. "He has to be out there somewhere, Gobber."

"Aye," Gobber agreed.

The evening meal was subdued. While the sailors were happy to be home, everyone mourned for the chief. There were very few in the village who didn't know the loss of a child or family member, and it looked to most like the chief had now lost not only his wife but also his only heir.

Stoick sat back at one of the tables with Gobber and Spitelout, brooding over his dinner. Neither of his friends said anything, instead picking at their own meals and throwing glances sideways to their chief when he wasn't looking.

"When can we send out more ships?" Stoick's question to Spitelout finally broke the silence. He had barely been back on Berk for a few hours before his mind turned to resuming the search for his boy.

Spitelout looked uncomfortably at his meal, "we need time to get together more food. Winter will be here soon and it's getting more and more essential that we have a large enough food supply to get us and the dragons through it."

Stoick snorted at Spitelout's clumsy attempt to hedge around the truth, "are ye saying we don't have the resources fer another round of ships?"

"We can send out one, maybe two, more ships before the ice sets in," Spitelout's interest was now fully captured by the lump of haddock on his plate.

Stoick sighed, "Right, when can I get going?"

"Maybe I should lead the search this time, Stoick?" Gobber offered, one meaty hand scrubbing at his moustache. "Ye've been gone for a fornight already, Stoick. And the village is preparing for winter. Ye're needed here."

Stoick glared fiercely over his tankard, "I will not abandon my boy."

"And I'm not suggesting you do. Let me handle the next round of search ships, Stoick. Ye should stay here and lead yer people," Gobber reasoned.

"I don't know, Gobber." Replied Stoick, downing another tankard of mead. "Hiccup's everything I have left."

Gobber sighed, "I know, Stoick. And I'm not suggesting you abandon him, but the people have started grumbling about your absence."

"Berk needs a strong chief right now," Spitelout agreed. "Mildew and his ilk are already questioning your leadership."

Stoick glared at his tankard, feeling as if his two friends and pseudo-advisors were ganging up on him. There was no question in the chief's heart that he would only stop looking for Hiccup when his boy was brought back to Berk. Whether that was dead or alive; Stoick couldn't quite bring himself to finish that thought.

The chief looked at his two friends, sincere in their attempts to help both his son and their tribe. With a heavy sigh Stoick acquiesced, "Gobber, you're in charge of _this_ search."

Neither Gobber nor Spitelout missed the Stoick's rough tone or the implication of his further involvement in the search. For now, both were just happy that their chief would spend a bit of time putting in an appearance and quelling the fears of what an absent chief could do to their tribe. As much as Gobber wanted nothing less than for Stoick to find Hiccup, he knew that political tensions in Berk could prove even more disastrous than foul weather for their search. He was disheartened that some in the village could so easily dismiss the young boy he had helped raise, but he had also lived long enough to understand why their concerns over winter preparations took precedence in their minds over the missing Hiccup.

With their negotiations done, Spitelout left Stoick to brood and went in search of more mead. Gobber stayed behind with the chief. "We'll find him Stoick, and I won't stop until we do."

Stoick sighed at his friend's reassurance. Sometimes he forgot that Gobber had helped to raise his son and cared for him nearly as much as Stoick did. "I hope you're right Gobber, I can't imagine what I'd do without him."

Two days passed before the second round of ships sailed out to resume their search. Stoick stood far above on the walkways of Berk, watching as they were lost on the horizon. He heaved a great sigh, wishing that it was him and not Gobber at the rudder.

"It's hard, isn't it? Astrid's voice startled the chief. "Not being able to do anything."

He looked over his shoulder as the girl walked over to join him. Together they looked out across the sea, watching until the ships could no longer be seen. Astrid left as silently as she had come, leaving the chief to his thoughts.

Astrid would give anything to be out with Stormfly or those ships searching for Hiccup, but Spitelout had held the teens back until they finished preparing the dragon school for winter. The dragon barn was on schedule to be finished before the winter solstice and the teens were needed to help supply the new building and transition the dragons into their new home. The lack of formal training for many in the village left only a few qualified to help finish the task. Hiccup had planned to train more of the villagers in handling dragons later in the spring, Astrid only hoped that he would be there for those classes.

The girl had spent nearly every waking hour of the past two days engrossed in the preparations for winter. She threw herself into her work like she never had before. Astrid knew that she was trying to block everything out around her, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Every day that passed brought new terror to Astrid's life. Every day made her more certain that something bad had happened to Hiccup. Thoughts of him crashed somewhere on a hostile island; awash in the sea; or, Hel forbid, dead and rotting invaded her mind constantly.

Despite these constant fears, every day Astrid would put on her mask of strength, would steel her shoulders to bear the burden of another day. She wouldn't let her friends see just how desperate she was becoming. If she gave into her fear, so would they.

"Gobber's going to find him, right?" Fishlegs asked on a daily basis as the teens helped to haul in equipment to the nearly finished dragon barn.

"Of course he's going to find him," Snotlout returned without a moment's hesitation, confidence dripping from his assurance.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut, for their part, continued to argue about everything. Astrid was almost thankful for their inane babble as it helped to distract her.

The day's work was almost done and the teens were packing up for the night. Their workspaces and projects needed to be secured for the morning.

"Hiccup's coming back, right?" Ruffnut had asked in a small voice as she and Tuffnut left for the night.

Tuffnut shrugged, his shoulders sagging, "He's Hiccup."

Astrid ducked behind a door as the two passed. When she was sure she was alone, she sank down the wall to sit on the ground. Her arms clutched her middle in pain as she tried to hold back tears. Everything seemed to be crashing in around her. A quiet hiccup escaped her lips, the sound painfully reminding her of the boy she had lost.

Before Astrid could completely lose it, the glint of her axe caught her attention. She heaved herself to her feet and jogged over to snatch up the leather bound handle. There were still several targets up from mounted dragon combat drills and Astrid poured all of her grief and terror into them. Panting and screaming, she turned somersaults and complicated spins as she launched her axe to bite deep into the targets. Throwing had always been one of her strongest skills and the mangled targets bore the fruit of years of practice.

With a final yell, Astrid drove her axe deep into the wood of her target, splintering the pine beyond repair. She leaned against the lodged axe, panting and regaining her composure.

"Astrid?" Stoick's voice startled the Viking teen.

Without thinking, Astrid yanked her axe out of the target and spun on Stoick with a surprised yelp. Stoick easily caught the girl's arm as the axe swung at him. Astrid's chest heaved and her eyes were wild. She struggled against the chief for a minute before his calming voice brought her back to reality.

"It's ok, Astrid." Stoick carefully reached over with his other hand and removed the axe from her lax grip. With the offending weapon tossed unceremoniously over his shoulder, Stoick released her arm. Astrid sank to her knees, a lost look replacing the fire in her eyes.

"It's ok, I'm ok," Astrid tried to assure him.

Stoick sighed and hauled the girl to her feet, "No yer not, and neither am I. We all miss him, Astrid."

Astrid nodded and sniffled. She regained her balance and scrubbed the tears off of her face. Her expression once again set back into its hardened and guarded mask.

Stoick clapped her on the back, "Come on, for a night, let's forget about being strong for the others."

Astrid looked up at Stoick in surprise as the large man led her from the dragon school and towards the Great Hall. In all of the years she had known their chief, he had never stopped being the personification of strength.

The two Vikings found a table close to the fire and ate in silence. Slowly the other villagers filed out of the hall and back towards their own houses and families. A few tossed sympathetic looks towards Astrid and Stoick, but most hurried past with lowered heads. When they were finally alone, Stoick refilled both their tankards and invited Astrid to sit beside him.

After an awkward pause, Stoick began speaking, a distant look in his eyes. "You know, even as babies you and Hiccup always fought."

Astrid looked at Stoick quizzically, but the chief was too lost in the memory to notice.

"He would try to take your stuffed sheep from you and you'd always beat him up," Stoick laughed to himself, "everyone knew ye'd been blessed by Týr to be one of his fighters."

The mead swirling around inside Astrid's tankard distracted the girl as she tried to look anywhere but at Stoick, "I loved that sheep."

Stoick laughed, "and when he was six, you fell asleep and the twins convinced Hiccup to draw on your face with one of Thorlot's gooseberry pastes."

Astrid couldn't help the smile that spread across her face, "I remember that. I wouldn't talk to him for weeks." She took a moment to reflect fondly back on her earlier years, "One time Hiccup tried to impress me with one of his 'fire prevention inventions' and caught the smithy on fire."

The night slipped by as Astrid and Stoick shared stories of Hiccup's shenanigans throughout the years. When the two parted in the wee hours of the morning, both were glad that in the absence of Hiccup, they could draw both strength and comfort from one another.

 **Angelina: That one got away from me again.**

 **Arthur: Maybe you'll actually start writing longer chapters.**

 **Angelina: Anyway, I'm off to college in a few days. I'm aiming to keep up with my once a week update schedule, but we'll see how it goes. Senior year and all that.**


	13. The New Normal

Chapter 13: The New Normal

The hills of Berk were green and shining under the rare springtime sun. Sheep grazed contentedly on the lower slopes, bleating occasionally. The returning fishing ships could be seen through the afternoon sun. A warm breeze brought the smell of Thorlot's fresh baked bread wafting through the village. Voices and laughter filled the settlement as Vikings went about their daily lives. Overhead dragons soared by as the teens of the dragon school headed out for their evening ride.

Hiccup sat on the highest hill of Berk, his father by his side. Stoick was explaining the intricacies of keeping a village running. Hiccup let him prattle on as he leaned back to watch the clouds sail by, content to listen to his father's deep voice. The sky was unduly blue that day and the clouds fluffy white pictures. Breathing in deeply through his nose, Hiccup let himself drift off to sleep to the lullaby of his father's voice.

Eyes blinked blearily open. A dirt ceiling came into focus as Hiccup rubbed his tired eyes. It took him a moment before he realized that he wasn't in his bedroom on Berk but lying on his hard bench in captivity. Hiccup's mind reeled, a dream? Had it all just been a dream?

"Hiccup?" Geirhildr's voice broke through Hiccup musings.

The boy sat up to see the other thrall standing next to his bunk. Her hair was already up in its signature double plait. Without another word she disappeared back into the main corridor. Hiccup took a moment to belt on his tunic and throw on a loose-fitting but warm skin around his shoulders. He followed Geirhildr around to another small hallway that jutted out from the main structure. There was a small door at the end of the room that led out into a small holding pen. Hiccup ducked through the door and emerged into the pre-dawn chill of the Viking north. Stars twinkled coolly in the night sky above and the boy's breaths rose in puffs. Hiccup rubbed his hands together as he pulled his skin closer.

Geirhildr sat on a small stool at the opposite side of the holding pen. A goat was tied to the post next to the girl. Hiccup watched for a minute as the thrall's hands skillfully worked the goat's udder, coaxing milk into a wooden bucket. The boy moved quickly to set up another stool and help Geirhildr finish with the milking. Hiccup's hand moved in a jerky rhythm as milk hit the sides of his bucket in staccato bursts.

Soon the milking was done and the horizon was just beginning to lighten. The first signs of movement could be heard throughout the longhouse as the rest of the thralls woke for their morning tasks. Hiccup sighed as Geirhildr disappeared back inside. His job was just beginning.

Hiccup whistled and a great fluffy beast trotted out of the house to rub against the boy's legs insistently. "That's a girl, Heiflund," Hiccup laughed as he scratched the creature behind a big, fluffy ear. Heiflund gave a great woof in response. Skili had told Hiccup that Heiflund's kind were called dogs. Berk had rarely seen creatures such as the great, fluffy dog and Hiccup honestly wished they were native to his islands. He had come to love and respect Heiflund very quickly.

The boy threw open the gates to the holding pen at the same time that he whistled to his dog. Goats poured quickly out of the gate, leaping away towards the hills. The two took off to the northern slopes, herding the goats out to their pastures.

It had taken Hiccup a while to adapt to his new life. Goat herding was a messy and demeaning job, but it had quickly become Hiccup's main task in a day. Although it required him to be up and gone long before the day meal, herding provided Hiccup with some solitude. Far out on the northwestern slopes of the farm he would take the goats to pasture. Milk goats and rams were rugged and well adapted to the rocky and steep inclines of their home, but Hiccup had yet to find his footing. Almost every day he returned with a new scrape or bruise.

Heiflund kept him company and Hiccup was always appreciative at how well she was trained. Together they managed to keep the herd together and out of danger. Geirhildr had taught him how to work with the dog and had been amazed by how quickly Hiccup won both the love and respect of the otherwise fierce dog. The two wandered together, navigating the jutting rocks and scrubby autumn plant growth.

Hedda had given the job of goatherd to Hiccup as a three pronged approach. The task was demeaning and dirty, relegated to the least favoured of individuals. It also kept the clumsy Viking teen out from under the feet of Hedda and the main family. Most importantly, however, the job gave Hedda added control. Hiccup had been moved into the northwest slopes, far away from the coast and the nearest road. Escape routes from the slopes either led into the inhospitable north, the steep western mountains, or southeast and into view of the longhouse. Though the opportunity to run was always there, escaping would be suicide. The pastures were treacherous for the boy and the job physically demanding. Hedda held food back, always making sure that Hiccup left the day meal hungry. If he was allowed to take a ration with him, it was severely limited and only enough to keep him on his feet. It was only when Hiccup returned to the longhouse at the end of his herding that he was given a decent meal. Every evening meal Hiccup fell on his food ravenously, cramming down as much as he could before it could be taken away. Hedda seemed to enjoy the pain of Hiccup's hunger and the bending of his will to the needs of his body.

Thoughts of food filled Hiccup's mind more so than escape nowadays. His day was no more than a grind for survival, a push to make it to the evening meal. There was little else to live for in this strange place, with these strange people. Though his waking world was confined with the struggle to live, the world of his dreams was filled with Berk. He dreamt of his father's voice lulling him to sleep. He dreamt of Astrid's face crinkled in laughter. He dreamt of soaring through the air on Toothless' back. Every night Hiccup would close his eyes and sail back over the sea to his home. Every morning Hiccup's eyes would open to the same dirt ceiling, the same promise of another day struggling to stay alive. The possibility of ever returning to the world he only saw in dreams now was slipping farther and farther away with each passing day. Sometimes he wasn't sure if the dreams were a blessing or a curse.

 **Angelina: I apologize for posting a day late. I'm now back at college and it took a while to get my internet back up and running.**

 **Arthur: This is a bloody big year for us. On top of starting our last year of school, we're also starting back at an American institution after studying in England for six months.**

 **Angelina: The transition back is going to be rough. Work study begins in the morning and I'm supervisor this year, so I'm running all of the schedules for the other workers as well as keeping the professors' schedules.**

 **Arthur: We've been able to write a few chapters ahead. They are in sore need of editing, but it should allow us to keep up with the once a week postings.**

 **Angelina: There will be more excitement in the coming chapters. Next week's update will be back on it's scheduled day.  
**


	14. Winter is Coming

Chapter 14: Winter is Coming

The winter months were coming on quickly; every day the temperature grew colder and colder. The wind buffeted Hiccup mercilessly as he trudged about the northwestern slopes, a staff in hand and Heiflund at his side. At least the goats didn't seem to mind the cold so much.

When he wasn't freezing his rear end off out herding, Hiccup found himself increasingly seeking the comfort of the indoors. He and Geirhildr had moved their milking into one of the smaller all-purpose halls were Heiflund and some of the geese stayed.

The thralls and the main family were quickly preparing for the winter months. When the blizzards and ice set in, much of their work would be restricted to the indoors. Skili and Snortr helped master Sigfred and his younger brother Steinrodr with making sure the last of the peat was stored, there was enough food for the winter, and picking out the weakest animals to slaughter. Skili had explained to Hiccup that the winters were often too harsh for some of the animals too survive. So instead of the family wasting resources on the weaker animals and them suffering needlessly, a few were chosen to be slain for food and their coats. The rest were secured away with several months' worth of hay and fodder.

The day of the slaughter was filled with activity. Hiccup woke with a thrill, knowing he wouldn't have to return to the northwestern slopes for another freezing day. He and Geirhildr quickly set about milking the goats in the longhouse. Although Hiccup doubted he would ever be as good as the young thrall at milking, the daily repetition of the task had rendered his hands adept at coaxing the milk out of the goat. The warmth of the udder was always a joy in the frigid early mornings.

Hiccup used that morning's task to think. For the past moon the boy had taken to the practice of picturing his loved ones' faces. From his experience on his island in what had seemed a lifetime ago, Hiccup had learned how quickly he could forget what their faces looked like. As he milked he mentally mapped out the way his father's strong jaw could be seen beneath the layers of his beard. He mapped out the curve of Astrid's cheekbones as they spread out towards her ears. For some reason, the Viking girl was self-conscious about her ears. He even mapped out their patterns that Toothless' scales formed between his two sensitive ears. And every morning as he drew a mental picture, Hiccup would try to remember bits and pieces of their personalities or little stories that he could tuck away at the back of his mind and cherish in his captivity. He grew increasingly depressed that it was becoming harder and harder for him to remember even the little things about his friends and family.

"Where were you from before all of this?" Geirhildr's voice broke through Hiccup's musings as they continued their milking. Her question was a surprise as the thrall very rarely spoke.

Hiccup's hands stopped their motion in shock at her question. "Berk," he answered simply. His goat bleated unhappily at the pressure of his hands tightening around its udder.

Geirhildr waited a moment for the steady rhythm of Hiccup's milking to pick back up before speaking again, "What was it like?"

"Beautiful. Our village is built on the edge of a bluff and over onto a sloping hill. It's so green in the springtime," this time Hiccup's hands didn't even pause in their task.

"My family came from a small fishing village. It wasn't more than a few shacks on a rock, but we were happy," Geirhildr offered. "I never actually saw it, I was born to this family as a thrall. But my mother used to tell me such stories about it."

Hiccup wasn't sure what to say. He honestly didn't know whether or not he wanted to even talk about the subjects of home.

"What of you?" asked Geirhildr. "Do you have any stories of your home?"

Hiccup debated with himself for a moment before sighing and bowing his head to rest on the flank of the goat he was milking. "Our food is tough and often tasteless and our people more so, but we have one thing that's always made us unique."

"Oh?" prompted Geirhildr.

"Several years ago my people befriended dragons." At Geirhildr's confused look Hiccup searched him mind for the word this people used for his dragons, "Dreki."

Geirhildr's eyes widened, "like the wyrm that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil?"

Hiccup laughed unexpectedly at both her expression and her example, "No. Ours are more like overgrown lizards with wings. They make amazing friends and have seriously helped our village to thrive."

"Vat are ye doing in there?" Hedda's shriek interrupted Hiccup's story. "Be quick!"

The two quickly finished their task and herded the goats back outside. The rest of their day was filled with seemingly nonstop action. After a sacrifice for the winter was given to Höðr, the heavy work began.

A few bedraggled looking cattle and sheared sheep milled about in the holding pen. Hiccup felt immensely sorry for them. He was forced to help Skili herd one of the sheep up to the post where master Sigred, Steinrodr, Snortr, and Hedda were waiting. The sheep's back leg was tied tightly and the rope thrown over the top of the post. Snortr and Steinrodr quickly hoisted the sheep into the air before securing the rope to the post. Hiccup flinched and dropped his gaze when master Sigfred slit the creature's throat. Blood poured out into a waiting wooden bucket, when that was full the blood soaked the ground. After what seemed like an eternity, the bloodletting stopped. Hedda made quick work of skinning the sheep, stained up to her elbows in its gore. Skili edged away slightly from the fearsome sight their overseer made as she tried to hand him the pelt. Once the skin was off, Hedda removed the head and Snortr lowered it back to the ground. Steinrodr took it off to a low wooden bench situated nearby with butcher's tools lying next to it.

The men made quick work of disposing of the rest of the cattle and sheep. The wool sheared before the slaughter was set aside to be processed during the winter months. Hiccup helped Skili carry the fresh skins into the longhouse where they were dumped in great pots to soak.

The day stretched long into the night before the work was finally done and everything squared away. But even after the evening meal was finished the thralls had more work to accomplish. Hedda, Herbjorn, Snortr, Skili, Geirhildr, and Hiccup sat around the fire pit in the middle of the thralls' quarters. They each worked at a hide, stripping it of hair and fleshy bits. At the beginning of the day Hiccup might have been slightly revolted at the task, but after watching the slaughter the hides didn't faze him.

For a long time, silence stretched between them as they worked. After a while, Geirhildr spoke up from her bench, "tell us about Berk, Hiccup."

Hiccup startled from his task but then smiled at the offer. He hoped a story would help take his mind off of a long day of work. "Far across the sea lies Berk. It's twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. It's located solidly on the meridian of misery. For 300 years the people of Berk fought against the dragons, the Dreki, both kinds pitted against the other in a desperate struggle for survival. Every generation the children of Berk would inherit their parents war and carry on the fighting, determined to once and for all rid the land dragons. Until one day a young boy became the first to look a dragon in the eyes and let it live. Slowly he began to change the world of Berk…"

The story stretched late into the night as the thralls worked. Most listened with rapt attention and even Hedda didn't complain. The story was nearing the end when they finally finished their work. With promises to finish the story of Berk the next day, the thralls reluctantly fell into bed.

And thus a new tradition began. Anytime some of the thralls and Hiccup were gathered together for work, Hiccup would be cajoled into telling stories about Berk. His theatrical nature slowly came back as he told more and more stories. In the space of a few days Hiccup became one of the most liked people in the longhouse. Hedda even requested a story once when Hiccup was helping her cook.

The ache for home was ever present and often made worse by the stories Hiccup told, but the boy was surprised to find that the more he told them about the dragon school and life on Berk the closer to home he felt. His story times allowed Hiccup to latch onto the memory of better times and helped him keep his sanity as storms began to lock the families away in their longhouse. And just like that, hope was rekindled.

 **Angelina: I don't actually read/watch Game of Thrones, but I couldn't resist the title of the chapter.**

 **Arthur: She does love dragons though, and thought a reference to another dragon fandom would be fun.**

 **Angelina: I'm not very comfortable with this chapter, the change in Hiccup's attitude is a bit too abrupt for me. I wanted him to grow from a struggle to survive to finding little ways to hold onto his home and spirit even in the midst of his turmoil.**

 **Arthur: Yeah, you really did a bang up job on that, didn't you? Confusing as heck.**

 **Angelina: You're soooo kind, Arthur. Excusing the sarcasm, I don't know too much about how the Vikings would have slaughtered their animals so please excuse the guess work there. Apologies for the late chapter, I tried to post it on Tuesday evening as usual but it appears that was down.**

 **NEXT WEEK'S UPDATE: Life back on Berk**


	15. The Winter Solstice

Chapter 15: The Winter Solstice

Stoic trod silently along the frozen ground. Snow blanketed the landscape in drifts, smothering the usually green and brown islands in a jarring white. The winter solstice was upon the village of Berk and many of the Vikings had spent days preparing for the celebration. The mood of the village had revived from the somber air after Hiccup's disappearance and was now brimming with exuberance. For Stoic, there was little to celebrate that year. Every day brought with it new struggles to attend to and the shrinking possibility that Hiccup would ever return to Berk.

The ice had set and the ships had been called back. It would be much too dangerous to mount a search by ship again until the spring. The teens still flew out to comb the archipelago periodically as the winter wore on, but they had turned up nothing except anxiety with the neighboring tribes. Stoic found himself increasingly tied down with the obligations of running a village and his presence during the searches had diminished.

The solstice was supposed to be a time of rebirth, to celebrate the triumph of Sol over the darkness. Stoic was afraid of what this rebirth would bring. Every day for the past week Stoic had undertaken the trek out past Raven's point at the time of midday when the sun would rise for a few brief hours. Every day he prayed to the gods that the rebirth of Sol would bring with her the rebirth of his son. Even if Hiccup was forever taken from Stoic, the man prayed that wherever his son might be, he would be able to live a happy life.

With his prayers done, Stoic returned to the village, his mask of the jovial yet firm leader in place. The solstice sun was going to rise tomorrow and Stoic had a lot to do in order to get ready. The villagers were putting together the final preparations and he had to be sure everything was set. His heart wasn't in the celebration that year, but that didn't excuse him from his duty to his people. The solstice was very important to Vikings and the celebration was only one of two large celebrations in the otherwise harsh months of winter.

"Nice to see ye're back," Gobber greeted as Stoic huffed up the last hill to the village center.

"I know," Stoic answered the unvoiced reproach. "Have you seen Thorlot?"

Gobber shrugged and hefted the basket of dried fish higher onto his back. He clapped Stoic on the shoulder as he shuffled off towards the great hall. Stoic sighed and trudged along to the bakery, mentally counting up the remaining preparations to be made. After making sure the baker had everything in order for the feast the next day the chief helped rearrange the furniture in the great hall and set up the bonfire for the feast. By the time he was finished helping out and verifying that everything would be ready for the day of festivity and sacrifices, Stoic was exhausted. He had just enough energy to shovel some dinner down before trudging back to his empty house and falling into bed. It wasn't until he was tucked away in his furs that the quietness of the house fully hit him. Sometimes Stoic was surprised by how quickly he could push his son's absence to the back of his mind in favor of more immediate needs. Stoic sighed and pulled the furs up to his chin, battling his internal guilt, grief, and need for closure one way or the other.

The morning dawned dark and frigid. It had snowed again in the night and Stoic had trouble shouldering his door open against the drift that had accumulated on the step. The blackness of the morning greeted him along with the jubilant shouts of Berkians as they awoke to their day of revelry.

Stoic stood on the step for a moment, his cloak pulled securely about his shoulders. He wasn't ready to face his first celebration without Hiccup. All the years he had taken for granted, assuming he would pass on long before his child. Now he wished for those chances back. He wanted to make the most of moments he had considered trivial just months earlier.

"Ready for this?" a young voice asked heavily.

Stoic looked to his side, surprised to find Astrid standing ramrod straight beside him. He snorted and strode out with purpose to celebrate with his people. Astrid followed silently in his wake, emotion banished from her features.

Gobber met them halfway to the great hall, "well aren't you two models of jubilation today." He pulled Astrid off of her feet and into an awkward bear hug, earning a squawk of indignation. A smile tugged at Stoic's lips. Gobber smiled back at his friend and let Astrid stumble from his grip, "that's better. You'll need a smile today."

The three Vikings shared a bittersweet look between each other before Ruffnut and Tuffnut careened through the group. Their faces were painted almost beyond recognition and they were yelling nonsensical phrases into Astrid's face.

"Blurgh! Come on, Astrid! We're going to miss the party." Ruffnut grabbed one of Astrid's arms and began dragging her off to where the bonfire was going to be lit.

Tuffnut grabbed her other arm, "Snotlout bet that he could drink more than me. He is totally going down!"

A protesting Astrid was hauled off to god knew where by the vocal twins, leaving a slightly bewildered Gobber and Stoic in their wake. After a moment of stunned silence, a laugh bubbled up from Stoic's belly as he watched the teens leave. He remembered what it was like to be young. A sudden pang of loss spread through Stoic's chest before he heaved another side and set off again for the great hall. "For once, Gobber, the kids have the right idea. Let's celebrate what life there is."

"I could nae have said it better myself," Gobber replied, falling in step beside his friend.

The revelry lasted for the better part of two days. The sun was welcomed and worshipped with much feasting, eating, and burning of various objects. Sacrifices and prayers for the coming seasons were offered drunkenly to Sol and the gods.

The celebration was filled with both joy and sorrow. On one hand Stoic had come to celebrate the small life his Hiccup had been able to live on Berk. On the other hand, however, the loss of his child weighed heavily on Stoic's heart. One moment he was laughing as a toddling youngster wielding a burning torch ran away from his squealing mother, the fire cutting a burning path in the darkened day as he escaped. The next moment memories of Hiccup at that age assaulted Stoic. He managed to participate and lead the celebrations as was required of him, but a part of him had come to the startling conclusion that life would forever be different without Hiccup.

When the day, night, and a good portion of the next day had passed, Stoic stumbled away from the party in search of solitude. He stumbled along the path, a gut full of mead and a head full of memories. After lurching around in the dark for a few minutes, Stoic found his feet walking the familiar path to the dragon school. The foreboding structure loomed as an outline against the black sky. Stoic trudged inside only to stop in surprise at the voices and laughter that could be heard inside. He peaked around the corner to find Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Astrid gathered in a circle with their dragons. Tuffnut was animatedly telling a story, mead sloshing out of his tankard as it was waved emphatically about.

Stoic was unsure whether or not to approach the friend group until Fishlegs saw him out of the corner of his eye. The teen lumbered to his feet, "Chief!"

The rest of the group turned to him, an awkward moment passing before Ruffnut hurried over to pull him towards their group. "We're having a party for Hiccup," she explained.

Stoic was shuffled to an empty spot and forced to sit down. A snort to his left drew Stoic's attention to Gobber, passed out in a drunken stupor. He should have known his best friend would be here. The next thing Stoic knew, a tankard full of honeyed mead and a lamb's leg were thrust into his hands. The group continued to talk animatedly around him about their many adventures with Hiccup. Stoic was floored by the rush of affection he had for the group of friends. While the rest of Berk had moved on from Hiccup's departure, giving him up for dead, these teens still held out hope and clung to the fond memories of the boy. Even if his son was never found, this group would never let his memory fade.

Astrid plunked down next to Stoic and the sleeping Gobber. Her face was full of the emotions she never allowed herself to express in public, "You know, everyone else thinks he's dead. And I get that, death is as much a part of life as anything else. It's easier for them to put Hiccup into the category of either living or dead, it's too complicated for them to think of him as displaced or lost. They want us to mourn and move on as everyone else does. But we'll never give up hoping. We know he's out there somewhere, just waiting for us to find him or for his chance to get back to us. And if that's by the stars, then so be it."

Stoic didn't know how to reply to the girl's wisdom. Instead he stared solemnly into his tankard. The fire crackled in the background and the laughter of Hiccup's friends echoed as they celebrated his life. They were the few holdouts left to believe in the possibility of Hiccup returning. But as long as that hope was alive, so was Hiccup. Stoic fell asleep slumped against Gobber secure in that knowledge.

 **Angelina: First off, I apologize that this thing is so late! My God.**

 **Arthur: The bloody prospectus for our senior paper was due. Whopping 10 pages of outlines and source lists.** **Also, Astrid's mention of Hiccup coming back by the stars is an allusion to death. Constellations in mythology and all of that jazz.**

 **Angelina: Well, I finally finished writing the tail end of this story.**

 **Arthur: Yeah, now you just have to get the rest of this story there.**

 **Angelina: Don't remind me. God, I just want to finish writing this thing so I can get it out of my system.**

 **Arthur: You're bloody pathetic.**

 **Angelina: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I tried to marry the more traditional idea of the winter solstice with Stoick's grief over Hiccup's absence. It was also terrifying to try and write the Viking teens' personalities and dialogue.**

 **NEXT WEEK'S UPDATE: Midwinter has fallen on the world and Hiccup must figure out how to survive a harsh winter in an even harsher environment.**


	16. In the Bleak Midwinter

Chapter 16: In the Bleak Midwinter

"Is it snowing again?" asked Geirhildr from where she stood shivering amongst the milking goats.

Hiccup stood at the door to the outside world, peaking through the sliver that was actually open. "I think so. It's too dark to tell."

Geirhildr sighed. "The Jotuns are trying to bury us."

Hiccup nodded absentmindedly as he let the door blow closed behind him, the outside world once again cut off. It had been snowing for days at that point. If it kept piling up at the rate it had been, they would have to bring the goats in. Hiccup really didn't want to have to wade into that snowstorm unless he had to.

"I can't wait for spring," he mumbled as he pulled up his bucket. Goat's milk sloshed inside it, foam cresting the top. Their work seemed to stretch out longer than was natural in the cold and dark winter days. Hiccup sighed and returned to milking.

The snow continued to fall into the next day. The winds howled mercilessly around their longhouse, sounding for all the world as if it desired nothing more than to tear apart their dwelling. Peat fires were kept burning throughout the day and night, though Hiccup was finally happy to be used to the stench of the peat.

Hiccup awoke to Hedda knocking about the thrall's room, "Oop! Oop wit' ye!" her accent was still cloaked heavily by sleep.

Hiccup sat up, the furs bunching at his waist. Cold air assaulted his tunic clad chest and the chilled collar around his neck stung his skin. "Wha's happening?" he asked sleepily.

"Ve must bring in der animals," Hedda spoke as she wrestled on a cloak and tied woven wool around the top of her boots.

The thralls quickly rose and followed her example. Within minutes all but Herbjorn were properly bundled for the sub-freezing temperatures outside. Snortr stopped to help Herbjorn wrestle his cloak over his bent back. The thrall bunched together and stumbled through the longhouse to join the rest of the family.

Sigfred and Steinrodr led the charge as the entire household poured out into the gusting wind and freezing snow. Most animals in the north were hardy enough to spend long periods of time out in the cold, but even they surely would be lost in the drifting snow and steadily falling temperatures. The Viking farmers had waited as long as they possibly could to bring the animals in, but now it appeared that it was time to save the herd. Everywhere Vikings chased goats, sheep, and long haired cattle across the paddock. Hiccup helped Skili and Herbjorn wrestle a cow into the barn before running after his goats. Heiflund bounded after Hiccup in the knee high snow, barking wildly and barely listening to Hiccup's whistle commands in the chaos. Hiccup grabbed two goats and maneuvered them back to the born. The animals gratefully retreated farther into the shelter. By now the barn was growing incredibly crowded, it was never meant to hold the farm's capacity of animals. Sigfred tried desperately to arrange the animals so they had enough room to move and wouldn't hurt each other in the confines.

A bleat caught Hiccup's attention as he was dashing out in search of more animals. A sheep had gotten caught on one of the rough fence posts. Hiccup blew an irritated sigh before working his way over to help free the creature. Just as he was about to reach out a hand to comfort the sheep, his feet disappeared out from under him as his metal leg got caught on something under the snow. Hiccup fell with a shout into the drift, snow immediately filling his world and burying him completely. The cold powder shifted into Hiccup's clothing and down his tunic, causing the boy to shiver helplessly as it came in contact with his skin. Pawing at his side eased some of the snow and Hiccup was able to roll over onto his back and sit up. Heiflund was immediately at his side, licking the boy and whining. "It's okay, girl. I'm okay. Just cold."

Hiccup managed to get the sheep free after several minutes of trial. The thing was too frightened to do much else, so Hiccup hauled it over his shoulders with waning strength and carried it off to the barn. Hedda was waiting at the door to relieve Hiccup of his burden.

Finally, the animals were stowed and the Vikings joyously retreated to the shelter and warmth of their longhouse. Wet clothing was thrown into piles and they huddled close to the fire, naked save for the furs thrown about their shoulders in an attempt to warm up. Alfhild, two of her daughters, and Hedda passed around mead and salted mutton. As soon as he was done eating, Hiccup fell into bed, still frozen and feeling altogether lousy. Something tickled at the back of his throat and he coughed wetly before finally managing to clear the blockage and expel a disgusting shade of yellowish mucus. Hiccup sighed and wiped his hand on the dirt floor, he was too tired to clean up after himself. He blinked at the dirt ceiling for several minutes before the exhaustion of the day washed over him and he fell headlong into sleep.

When Hiccup drifted back into the waking world, he was barely aware of his surroundings. His head was clouded and his memory shaky. Everything ached dully and no matter how far into his thin furs he snuggled, he couldn't quite get warm. Someone was forcing a foul tasting concoction down his throat, Hiccup swallowed most of it convulsively before coughing up the last bit into spittle that dribbled down his chin.

Voices by his side jerked Hiccup awake. He hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep. A hand felt at his forehead and he leaned into the touch, "dad?"

The voices stopped abruptly at his question. "Dad?" Hiccup asked again.

"Go back to sleep, Hiccup," a female voice answered him.

"Astrid?" Hiccup was confused. Why would Astrid be visiting him when he was sick? Where was his father? Why wasn't Toothless there. "Where's Toothless?"

"Svefn, Hiccup. Ye vill be b'tter vith rest," a matronly voice assured him. The world began to dim.

When Hiccup next regained consciousness, he was acutely aware of the sticky moisture soaking his furs. The sensation bothered him but he didn't have the energy to get up and replace his furs. A dirt wall rose in front of his face and Hiccup sighed as he tried to free the arm wedged beneath his body. This was unlike the sniffles or occasional fever Hiccup got at home. This was an illness that wracked his whole body, leaving him weak and bone weary. He could feel his pulse fluttering irregularly in his ears as his heart tried desperately to keep his system circulating.

"Hiccup?" Snortr's voice called.

Hiccup groaned and rolled over onto his back, the little movement leaving him drained and panting lightly. Snortr stood next to his bed, hands clenching nervously in front of him.

"How are you feeling?" the boy asked.

Hiccup opened his mouth to respond, but was alarmed when all that he managed to produce was a harsh whistling sound. Snortr hurriedly disappeared from his side and reappeared a moment later, a horn of water in his hands. He helped Hiccup take a few sips. The teen cleared his throat and tried again, "tir'd."

Snortr smiled slightly, "That is not surprising. You took ill after the storm two days ago."

"That long?" Hiccup asked, his eyes already drifting closed.

"Aye," Snortr answered. "I will fetch Hedda."

The young boy turned to get their overseer, but Hiccup had already drifted off again. His dreams were filled with black dragons and soaring in the skies above Berk.

Hiccup awoke once more, feeling markedly better than his last attempt at consciousness. His limbs ached and he smelled of urine and sweat, but his fever appeared to be gone. He negotiated his still asleep limbs to support him and managed to lever himself up into a sitting position. A horn of water hung on the post next to Hiccup's bench and the boy greedily drank it down. His arms and legs tingled unpleasantly as blood flowed unhampered through his limbs.

Geirhildr sat next to the firepit of the room, grinding wheat in the warmth of the crackling wood. Hedda sat next to her, a pile of carded wool sitting beside her. And next to Hedda sat Skili, a half completed bowl in one hand and a whittling knife in the other.

"Hiccup!" Geirhildr was the first to see him awake. "Are you better?"

"I think so," the teen replied as he stretched. It felt good to arch his aching back muscles and work the stiffness out of his shoulders.

"'boot time yer lazy bones got oop," Hedda chortled at the teen. Hiccup scowled comically in her direction.

At that moment mistress Alfhild stooped into their room, a basket of wool in hand. She spoke quietly to Hedda before gathering the carded wool. She turned to Hiccup on the way out, kindness in her prematurely wrinkled eyes, "it has stopped snowing."

"Praise the gods!" Hedda answered with a whistle. Alfhild smiled at her before leaving.

Hiccup was slightly taken aback, though he constantly worked around master Sifgred's family, he rarely spoke with them. A kind word from any of them was indeed a strange occurrence.

"She likes you," Geirhildr answered his astonishment. "It's your stories. Everyone likes them. They hadn't realized how much they loved them until it looked like you wouldn't get tell them again."

"Maybe I should get sick more often," Hiccup feebly joked. The corner of Skili's mouth twitched up into a smile.

"Ye are back to verk on die morgen, b'y," Hedda replied gruffly, carders scratching against each other as she processed the wool Alfhild had left her with.

"Oh joy," in the midst of everything, Hiccup was glad he kept his sarcasm. He managed to sit up for the evening meal before his bench called to him again. He was surprised to find a new fur on his sleeping place and slipped into the scratchy cover gratefully. Sleep came easy to the weary teen and soon he had drifted off. This time he dreamed of stories told by firelight and weathered faces creased in laughter.

 **Angelina: Well, this week has been a doozy.**

 **Arthur: Two bloody exams and three sodding papers on top of an annotated bibliography for our senior thesis.**

 **Angelina: I often wonder why I decided to go to college.**

 **Arthur: we're bloody masochists? That's the only explanation I can conjure up.**

 **Angelina: Thanks for that, Arthur. Anyway, hopefully a bit of Hiccup!whump isn't remiss on my part. I've been wanting to put more hurt into a hurt/comfort story (though this thing is turning into a historical drama at this point).**

 **Arthur: We're hoping to get the next chapter out on time next week, but we make no promises. There is no longer a set date for updating, though we are trying to churn things out around the midweek (sometime Tuesday-Thursday, preferably Wednesdays).**

 **Angelina: I have an archery competition at the end of this month to get ready for, so most of my free time will be spent at the range. This is what I get for trying to do a sports team and a senior thesis at the same time.**

 **NEXT WEEK'S UPDATE: Hiccup revisits a smithy and learns a lesson in minding his place.**


	17. The Cruel Master

Chapter 17: The Cruel Master

Hiccup had fully recovered from his bout of illness and was once again back into the routine of daily life at Stong. The goats always needed to be milked and now that the snow had let up, the animals could be let outside again. Hiccup spent frigid mornings minding goats as they managed to dig up roots from the frozen ground.

The midwinter Thurseblut celebration had come and gone and spring was finally on the horizon as Thor worked to expel the Jotuns from the north. The departure of the frost giants seemed to perk up the whole farm as the days grew longer and the snowstorms fewer. There would still be many more weeks of winter, but the Spring Equinox and the celebration of Ostara the goddess of spring would finally break up the monotony of darkness and snow. Soon they would start hoarding the goose eggs to dye and paint with berries.

As Hiccup helped to keep his part of the farm running and began the planning for the spring, he couldn't help but marvel that he had already passed two seasons in captivity. It seemed like he had spent years in these strange northern lands, working for naught.

Hiccup watched from his perch as Herbjorn and Skili shoveled manure out of the still crowded stable and into barrels to be stored inside. Hiccup remembered his father teaching him how to gather sheep droppings and store them so that the manure could be used for the sowing of hay when the ground was no longer frozen. For once, Hiccup was glad herding goats kept him busy. Shoveling manure did not look like a fun task. Plus, his tunic already stank of peat and wet goat.

"B'y!" Hedda's shrill shout broke through Hiccup's thoughts. Heiflund whined as the shout echoed about the farm.

The teen looked down to find Hedda in the paddocks, looking up at him insistently. He quickly stood to greet her, leaning heavily on his crook. "Yeah?"

"G't doon hier!" yelled Hedda.

Hiccup sighed and clambered down from his rocky hill. As soon as he was on the ground in front of Hedda the stout woman grabbed his arm and started leading him off, "Steinrodr needs yer help doon at the smithy."

She propelled Hiccup around to the path that led from the longhouse into the nearby collection of houses and shops. It really wasn't large enough to qualify as a village considering all of five families lived in the area, but it still provided a bit of the town center feel.

"Why me?" Hiccup asked, astounded. He had never been trusted before to travel anywhere near the roads after his ill-fated escape attempt.

"Ye can be replaced," Hedda offered. "Shoo noow."

Hiccup was shoved down towards the town center. He hurried off, his crook still dangling from one hand. As he went, he absently munched on his day meal. After two seasons on the job, the teen had learned to always eat when he had the chance. He never knew when that chance, or his food, would be taken away.

Within fifteen minutes of walking, Hiccup crested the hill that overlooked the shops. Five ramshackle stone and peat buildings huddled together against the wind. That was all that made up the town center. Three more outlying farms lay within several miles of these shops, or at least so Hiccup had been told. The buildings weren't really a town, but the families quickly figured out that it was better to pool their resources and provide labour for each other rather than trying do it all for themselves or making the half day's wagon ride into the major trading town and port.

The smithy stood out easily as acrid smoke billowed from a stone lined stack. The building, for sake of flammability, was set off a small ways from the others and made completely of stone. Hiccup was glad for it; he and Gobber had nearly set their own wooden smithy on fire several times. Hiccup smiled a moment at the fond memory before a pang of longing stole his smile.

Snortr looked up in relief as Hiccup entered. He quickly handed over his rawhide apron and dusted blackened hands off on his trousers. "Steinrodr needs errands run while his son is out of town," the young thrall explained.

Hiccup accepted the offered apron and tied it with expert hands. Though it had been two seasons since Hiccup had donned the smithy's apron, his dexterous fingers still remembered the knot. "Gotcha," he replied absently, already surveying the small space to see what he would be working with.

Snortr leaned in closer and lowered his voice, "Roduulf is away, be careful." With that the thrall quickly exited back into the cold and lazily falling snow.

Hiccup squared his shoulders and looked around for Steinrodr. The burly Viking was bent over the forge, a pair of tongs in his hands. He was focused solely on the metal melting in the cup he held in the fire. Hiccup came up behind him careful to give him distance and not to disturb the man. Steinrodr was the younger brother of Sigfred and had a legendary temper among the thralls. The man's wife was long dead and such his only child had become his world. Roduulf and Sigfred were the only ones who could placate the fierce Viking's wrath. Currently Roduulf had taken the family wagon and horses into town to trade their ironwork for supplies. With Steinrodr's son gone for at least two days, the thralls had been assigned to work with the volatile blacksmith.

"Boy!" Steinrodr hollered as he withdrew the melted iron from the furnace, "go fetch more water."

Hiccup dashed for the yoke and buckets leaning haphazardly up against the doorway. He quickly ran for the spring that flowed by the road. Wells were expensive and labour-intensive to make, plus they had a habit of freezing over in the winter. Running water took longer to freeze over completely and was much preferred by the farmers in the north. Hiccup quickly filled his buckets and hooked them onto the yoke before hoisting the wooden beam over his shoulders. He staggered back as fast as he dared to the forge and set the frigid water down beside the forge. It would take a few minutes before they were warm enough to use. He waited for them to warm up and then transferred them to the cooling basin for the forge.

Steinrodr looked over in mild approval as Hiccup threw his full weight on the bellows, keeping the fires of the forge burning bright. With a snarl and a few glances, Steinrodr directed Hiccup's attention to the peat stacks on one side of the forge. Hiccup threw a few logs on before resuming his task of stoking the fires.

The day went smoothly once Hiccup began to get back into the rhythm of smithing. Steinrodr's style and tempo of work was different than Gobber's and Hiccup would often have to check himself from moving into the next task before Steinrodr was ready. The transition back into skilled labour was a joy for Hiccup. He had missed the challenge to his mind as he worked quickly alongside an artisan, anticipating their needs and making sure everything was properly supplied and running smoothly. It sure beat having to herd goats, even if working with a herd dog took skill and sound strategy. Heiflund was a wonderful companion as far as a dog could be, but Hiccup had missed working with his hands. He had missed creating things.

The day came and went quickly and soon Steinrodr called a halt to the day's activities. Carefully they packed up shop and killed the forge before leaving. The trek back to the longhouse was passed in uneasy silence. Hiccup didn't want to say anything out of place to Steinrodr and contented himself with jogging to keep up with the man's long strides. When they finally reached the longhouse, Steinrodr and Hiccup plunked down to enjoy the evening meal with the rest of the house.

Hiccup went to bed that night with a full belly and a relaxed mind. His mind could not remember the dreams of the night. The teen was shaken awake slightly later than normal by Geirhildr and handed a bag of food. "Steinrodr wants you working with him until Roduulf is back. You need to go get everything ready for him."

Hiccup took the food and explanation thankfully. Within minutes he was bundled for the early morning freeze and off to the smithy. The forge was warmer inside even with the dead fire. He basked in the change of temperatures from the subzero outdoors before quickly setting about getting everything ready. By the time Steinrodr showed up, he had the fire glowing and the day's tools set out. He would leave it up to Steinrodr how much he wanted the forge stoked.

Hiccup knelt by the hearth, carefully brushing away the soot of the previous day. Steinrodr looked over his shoulder with approval at the neat job. For a moment, Hiccup allowed himself to bask in the rare favour of the ill-tempered man.

The next two days passed quickly for Hiccup. Every day he rose early and set up the smithy for Steinrodr. Every day he stood at the man's beck and call as they worked quietly together. Hiccup hoped that if he continued to prove his worth, maybe, just maybe, Steinrodr or Roduulf would take him with on their next journey into town. And if they did, maybe Hiccup could finally find his chance to escape.

Hiccup managed to keep everything running smoothly until the fourth day in. It was an innocent action that got him in trouble. The teen had been bustling around keeping things clean and running when he noticed Steinrodr's attention absorbed in shaping a plough arm on the anvil. Normally Hiccup wouldn't have been phased by his master's absorption in his task, but Steinrodr also had several soft rivets he had just finished forming that desperately needed to be cooled. Steinrodr had a plough that needed to be fixed, but attaching the iron blades to the wooden frame needed cool and soft rivets. The soft pieces of metal needed to be fully quenched before they could be used for cold riveting needed to repair the plough.

Hiccup cleared his throat in an attempt to get Steinrodr's attention. If the man didn't drop the metal pieces in a cooling basin immediately, they would be too soft to adequately hold the plough together. "Master?" Hiccup prompted.

Steinrodr didn't even look up, eyes focused on the iron arm he was meticulously shaping. Hiccup shrugged and transferred the rivets over a workboard. He dropped the bits of metal in, watching in satisfaction as the pieces were quenched properly. After a minute Hiccup retrieved the quenched rivets and transferred them back onto the small workboard.

"What are you doing, boy?!" Steinrodr demanded as Hiccup turned around with the cooled pieces. The older Viking's eyes widened almost comically in anger as the boy's handiwork became visible.

Hiccup's eyes shot down to the floor in shock at the reproach. He held up the pieces he had worked as an explanation, "they needed to be quenched, I didn't want you to have to reheat them."

"How dare ye!" Steinrodr breathed quietly in rage. "Do ye take me fer a fool, boy? Do ye have no respect?"

Hiccup backed away uncertainly, his hands numbly allowing the workboard to slip through his fingers. The board clattered to the ground as the rivets bounced away. Steinrodr's gaze was murderous as the boy cowered back against the cooling basin. The hand that was holding the hot iron raised above Steinrodr's head and Hiccup had a sudden premonition of dread at what was about this happen. The teen jerked to the side as Steinrodr brought the dark red heated metal down. Even with Hiccup's quick reflexes the metal caught him on his shoulder blade, searing into his skin. For a moment Hiccup could feel blazing heat as the rod was held to his back, then Steinrodr gave a surprised shout and the rod clattered to the ground. As Hiccup collapsed to the floor he watched Steinrodr's eyes widen in horror before the burly man fled the forge. Hiccup was left curled on the floor of the forge. His back hurt and the stench of burnt flesh filled his nostrils, but Hiccup was surprised by how little pain he felt.

Hiccup crawled to the door of the forge, his right arm dangling uselessly as his shoulder refused to move. With some struggling, he managed to haul himself to his knees and push the door open. Immediately the cold of the outdoor world assaulted him and Hiccup collapsed forward thankfully. His right shoulder jarred as the boy hit the ground and Hiccup screamed in agony. His whole back lit up in fiery pain and Hiccup writhed in the throes of agony. Hiccup couldn't believe how much the burn hurt, how it seemed to consume his whole being. The teen's body was no longer under his control and his mind begged for release. The world tunneled alarmingly in front of his eyes before shutting off completely. Hiccup was left lying limply in the doorway of the forge, his back lightly steaming in the frigid temperatures.

 **Angelina: How's that for a cliffhanger?**

 **Arthur: Are you proud of yourself now?**

 **Angelina: Considering most of my chapters have had a fairly defined ending, yes, I am happy to use something new.**

 **Arthur: And it's fun to make the readers squirm.**

 **Angelina: Also, how about that?! Hiccup!whump two chapters in a row. I am on a roll!**

 **Arthur: For those wondering, Steinrodr's action is so severe on two accounts. First his bloody temper is easily set off and second, Hiccup performing a task that needs the skilled eye of a trained smith was an affront to Steinrodr's authority and skill as a smith both of which would have been viewed as highly disrespectful.**

 **Angelina: Yes, thank you, Arthur. Anyways, please leave me any feedback you have. I'm finally getting to the larger conflicts in the story and would love to know what you guys think about it so far!**

 **NEXT WEEK'S UPDATE: I'm not going to tell you, it would ruin the suspense I am blundering through.**


	18. No Stone Unturned

Chapter 18: No Stone Unturned

The biting wind of midwinter chafed and numbed Astrid's face as she soared through the air. Clouds hung heavy against the sky, forcing her to fly low. Snotlout and Fishlegs flanked her on either side. The twins brought up the rear, silent after Astrid's temper had exploded on their bickering.

After Berk had settled in for the winter, the teens had started the search again. They scoured farther and farther out until all of the Barbaric archipelago had been covered. Now they were in uncharted territory.

"Oh! Astrid! Assstttrriidd!" Ruffnut called out in the sing-song voice that frazzled Astrid's nerves.

Astrid internally counted to ten before barking back, "What!"

"I see land!" Ruffnut shouted.

Astrid turned in the saddle to see Ruffnut pointing off to the northeast. There was indeed a dark and wide smudge on the horizon. Astrid heaved a sigh of relief, they had been flying over open ocean for too long, it unsettled her Viking blood. "Fishlegs, distance?" demanded the girl.

"I'd say about half an hour at this pace," Fishlegs held up a metal and stone instrument, using it to help his estimate. He looked up from his task to Astrid's determined look. "I wouldn't push the speed. We don't know if anyone lives there. Mom'll kill me if I come home with arrow holes in my cloak again."

Astrid rolled her eyes, but eased up slightly on Stormfly. They would take this slow. "Alright, we have a day to search this island and make it back to Berk. Make this count."

"Aye, Aye Astrid," the twins replied in unison. Astrid's shoulders squared in annoyance and the two snickered uncontrollably.

They had been searching for months for Hiccup now. Every island east of Berk had been scoured and no sign of Hiccup had been found. The teens even had to fight off natives at one point. Many of the adults back on Berk were growing continually uneasy about their search missions as the winter wore on. So many resources were expended flying the dragons for days on end, and the harvest hadn't been good that year. But Astrid couldn't let them stop her, wouldn't call of the search until she had gone everywhere in the Viking world. And so the teens had struck out for uncharted lands, with only Gobber who knew where they were heading.

The land grew steadily larger until the teens could make out the rocky beech. Astrid signaled to land and the four dragons coasted in as quietly as possible. The pebbles of the beach were slippery under foot, the few jagged edges threatening to poke through the toughened leather of the teens' boots.

The small group led their dragons over to a patch of tall evergreen trees. On island chains which relied primarily on peat and coal for fuel, trees were still fairly common. While the particular patch was sparse, they allowed cover for the teens and their dragons.

"Ruffnut!" Astrid demanded, interrupting the girl's pursuit of a puffin.

The girl lurched upright, shoulders hunched forward and a crooked smile fixed to her face, "Wha?"

"Take Snotlout and scout ahead. And for Thor's sake, be quiet!" Astrid ordered, trusting that the pairing would be fairly stealthy.

Ruffnut threw a mock salute. "Aye, aye, Astriddddd," the syllable was pulled out annoyingly long and the laughter that followed was slightly crazed. For the umpteenth time since their childhood Astrid wondered if the twins had been dropped on their heads a few too many times.

"After you, princess," Snotlout smiled sweetly, offering Ruffnut the point position.

Ruffnut snorted in derision and rolled her eyes. "Your face is stupid," she drawled as she hurried by, smacking Snotlout in the gut for good measure. The winded Viking teen followed close on her heels, nearly bent double.

"Ahhhh, why did you have'ta send them?" Tuffnut pouted, his figure slouching dramatically as his sister stomped off.

"Because you're too loud and Fishlegs gets distracted," Astrid responded seriously. In the background, Fishlegs spluttered indignantly. Tuffnut rolled his eyes at the large Viking.

The teens waited in semi-silence for the return of the scouting party. Fishlegs and Tuffnut squabbled over the food they had packed, trading fish, smoked meat, and bread until both had built monstrous sandwiches.

"Astrid!" Ruffnut's scream pierced the afternoon air. The teens were on their feet with weapons in their hands before the cry had finished echoing across the abandoned beach. Astrid, Tuffnut, and Fishlegs charged to the edge of the woods, just in time to see Ruffnut charging over a grassy hill, Snotlout hot on her heels. As the teens crested the hill and began the scramble back to the woods, a small force of Viking villagers chased after them with everything from axes and swords to pitchforks and stone mallets.

"Odin owns you all!" a great cry arose from the Viking villagers before a spear flew just over Astrid's head.

Tuffnut yanked it out of the tree it had lodged in and threw it back, "Whad'd we ever do to them?"

Ruffnut and Snotlout burst into the small group, panting and bleeding. Seeing their injured companions, the rest of the Viking teens and dragons closed rank around them. They edged back into the cover of the woods as the angry villagers drew nearer.

"Whatd'd you do to them?" Tuffnut growled at his sister.

"It's not my fault they hate dragons!" Ruffnut yelled back, limping on a bleeding leg.

"Snotlout! What happened?" Astrid demanded as the group made a break for the beach. They needed to get into an open space away from villagers with spears if they were going to take to the skies.

Snotlout panted and clutched his shield hand to his chest as they ran, "They saw us come in on the dragons. Didn't even get close to the village before they attacked."

Astrid snarled at their luck and pushed herself faster, throwing glances over her shoulder as the angry mob of villagers pursued them through the trees. "Tuffnut, take Ruffnut."

Tuffnut nodded, breaking off to the left with his sister's arm slung around his shoulder. The two limped off a short distance with Barf and Belch. The teens might be annoying, but they knew that a large group was a big target

"Snotlout, be careful steering with that hand," Astrid advised as the Viking teen broke right following the path of his Montrous Nightmare as the dragon stuggled to weave quickly through the trees.

"Fishlegs, lead the way back to Berk. I'll take up the rear," Astrid ordered as Fishlegs panted behind her.

Finally the beach opened up in front of them and the teens eagerly clambered aboard their dragons. Fishlegs took off quickly with Snotlout shortly behind him. Astrid stayed behind to help Tuffut get Ruffnut on Barf and tie her down to keep her from falling off. Astrid launched herself off of the Zippleback as it took off and landed on Stormfly's waiting back.

"Spawn of Loki!" one of the villagers cried as the front runners broke through the trees and onto the beach.

"Does it look like I have eight legs?!" Astrid demanded as she swung her legs into the saddle and Stormfly obediently kicked off. With a flick of the dragon's tail, spikes went flying into the pursuing Vikings, raising cries of pain of anger. They were nearly 50 feet in the air when something slammed into the back of Astrid's leg, just above her boot. For a split second, Astrid didn't feel anything except the thrill of adrenaline rushing through her system, and then Stormfly's wing surged upward for another flap.

"Son of a half troll!" Astrid screamed out in pain as her dragon simultaneously roared in agony. Falling forward and clinging to Stormfly's neck, Astrid peeked over the side of the dragon. In the distance, Astrid could vaguely see the beach and the small figures still hurling weapons at the retreating figures of the dragon riders. However, it was the arrow piercing her leg and pinning it to Stormfly's wing joint that absorbed most of the Viking teen's attention. Blood flew out from rider and dragon as Stormfly painfully tried to stay in the air. Every movement of the wing joint in flight nauseously jostled the arrow, creating a larger hole in Astrid's leg as the shaft continually shifted. The weight of Astrid's leg paired with the shifting of the joint drove the point further into the dragon. Feeling faint, Astrid looked away and heaved her breakfast of fish onto Stormfly's flank.

"I need some help!" Astrid yelled to her fellow riders as she wiped vomit off on her gauntlets, hoping one of them would notice the predicament she and Stormfly were in. When no one immediately came to their aid, Astrid struggled back into a sitting position and looked over the top of Stormfly's head. The other riders were far ahead now and not slowing down. They likely hadn't even missed her presence yet.

For several minutes, the Astrid and Stormfly valiantly struggled to stay in the air, but the pain was excruciating. As soon as land became visible on the horizon, Stormfly locked her wings and glided in large, wobbly circles towards the land. As the brown hills came into view, Stormfly's body tensed in preparation before the dragon touched down in an awkward run. Astrid cried out in pain as the wound was jostled badly. The dragon's momentum finally died and Stormfly came to a stop, immediately tucking in her non-injured wing. For several minutes the dragon crouched on the slope of the hill they had landed on as Astrid tried her hardest not to pass out. Every muscle in her body screamed for release, but Astrid knew she had to get her leg unpinned from Stormfly's wing.

With a stifled cry, Astrid crouched over her injured leg. She fumbled around her back before finding the knife she kept strapped to her belt. Extracting the blade from its sheath, Astrid shakily brought it down to feel around the wing joint. After several moments of poking around, Astrid found where the shaft left her leg and bit into Stormfly's scales. Her hand slick with her own blood, Astrid kept a firm grip on her knife. Forcing her hand not to shake, she carefully looped the blade under the shaft. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Astrid began sawing at the shaft. The cedar spine was strong and the knife continually slipped on the slick blood that coated the shaft. Astrid growled in frustration and pain, wishing she had a serrated wood saw instead of her knife. After what felt like years, the knife splintered the last of the shaft and Astrid was able to pull her leg away.

Now she could clearly see where an obsidian arrow head was buried in Stormfly's wing joint and how the arrow had pierced her own leg. Several inches of shaft and distinctive striped fletching stuck out of the back of her calf. The other side of her leg bore a little over two inches of cut shaft that stuck out diagonally from the flesh next to her shin and slightly below her knee.

"This is going to hurt," Astrid grumbled to herself as she maneuvered her body over the dragon's flank to slide down to the ground. Her good leg touched down as lightly as possible, but her knee went weak almost immediately and the girl fell to her rump on the hillside. The arrow still in her leg was jostled nauseatingly.

Astrid lay panting in the bracken for several minutes before the concerned nudge of Stormfly's snout brought her back to the present. She struggled into a sitting position and blindly felt along her dragon's flank until she found the stowage compartment on her saddle. Astrid quickly extracted her healer's kit and rummaged around for bandages and a discoloured paste. Kindling and flint soon followed the healing kit.

Stormfly watched on as her rider lit a small fire and heated her knife up until it glowed menacingly in the twilight. Astrid clumsily slipped her belt out of her skirt. She folded the leather in half and looked up when her dragon cooed worriedly.

"Well, here goes nothing, Stormfly. Odin help me!" determination glinted in Astrid's blue eyes. The teen bit down hard on the folded leather belt and grasped the arrow shaft firmly below the fletching. Slowly, she dragged the shaft out of her leg, blood leaking out and soaking into the lining of her boot. Panting in pain and exertion, Astrid flung the offending arrow away into the forest. Without giving herself a second to think about it Astrid brought the hot knife down on the entrance wound. Searing pain flashed over her already jangled nerves and Astrid screamed around the belt. Normally another Viking or a healer would cauterize a wound, but Astrid was alone and bleeding. She just had to grin and bear it.

Shaking hands nearly dropped the knife as she brought it away from the wound to repeat the process on the exit wound. This time, however, Astrid couldn't manage to hold the knife to her skin and the cooling blade slipped from her fingers into the dirt. Tears streamed unbidden down the teen's face as she carefully smeared the burn cream over her injuries and then clumsily bandaged her leg. Her task done, Astrid lay back in the dirt and cried.

The clouds in the sky above her twisted and sailed as they were lit up by the setting sun. They taunted her with their ability to fly. A whine brought Astrid out of her pain filled haze. Stormfly crouched next to the Viking girl, her injured wing still outstretched.

Astrid held the dragon's face on her hands for a few minutes, drawing comfort from her animal's presence. "Right, let's get you fixed up," she murmured when the obsidian arrowhead glinted in the firelight and caught her attention. She had almost forgotten that Stormfly was hurt as well.

Working the arrowhead out of the scales was more difficult then Astrid originally had anticipated. She had to work the blade side-to-side to extract it from the hide and scales, cutting into Stormfly's flesh in the process. The dragon remained stoic throughout the process, only letting her tense body relax when her rider finally bandaged the joint.

With nothing left and no clue if the other teens would return for her, Astrid collected some firewood from a nearby cluster of pine trees and lit a beacon fire with some oil she carried around for emergencies. Thoroughly exhausted and in incredible pain, the girl fell asleep next to the roaring and crackling fire.

"She's over here!" a voice above Astrid called. The girl cracked her eyes open to see several dragons landing next to an enthusiastic Stormfly. She rolled over onto her side to greet the riders, but pain burst in fireworks across her vision.

The next thing Astrid was aware of was the wind whipping across her face and toying with her hair. She smiled groggily; she was flying, take that clouds.

The world came back to Astrid in a swirling mass of diluted colours before bursting into unfocused chaos. There was movement all around her and the twittering of tiny dragons. Warm skins nearly suffocated the teen as the pressed in around her form. Her head swam as Astrid sat up.

Two terrible terrors were curled up by her feet and another two played next to her bedside as Gothi bent over her leg. Astrid blinked owlishly at the village elder before clearing her throat. Gothi waved a dismissive hand at the teen before shoving a foul smelling concoction into her hands. Astrid obediently swallowed it down, cringing at the taste but knowing that it would take the edge off of her pain. She lay back down on the bed with a sigh, nestling back into the furs.

When she woke up for the second time, Gothi and her dragons were gone. The room was quiet except for the sounds of someone rustling the fire. Astrid sat up to see the hunched form of Stoic the Vast.

"Chief?" the girl asked, clearing her throat at the rough sound of her voice.

Stoic straightened quickly at the sound, smacking his head into the mantle as he stood. Rubbing ruefully at the top of his head, the chief turned to face Astrid, "It's good to see ye up."

"What happened?" the Viking teen questioned, surveying her expertly bandaged and numb leg.

"Ye went down over Glum bay after yer party was attacked," Stoic answered.

Memories of a desperate flight and the agony of treating her wound flooded Astrid's hazy memory. She swallowed convulsively around the bile that suddenly rose in her throat before accepting the horn of water that Stoic offered her.

"Yer lucky Ruffnut saw ye go down. We had no clue where ta look fer ye," Stoic explained as he ran his hands through his hair, still fingering where he hit his head. "I miss him to, Astrid, ye know I do. But ye can't go and get yerself killed looking for him."

Astrid opened her mouth to protest, but Stoic cut her off before so much as a sound could escape, "the village has decided that ye can't keep searching fer Hiccup." Stoic looked away from the girl as he said this, the pain in his eyes shielded by the shadows the fire threw about the room.

"But Stoic! We can't just – " Astrid began before Stoic held up a hand to silence her.

"Astrid, I have no choice. I'm grounding ye and the other teens, at least until yer injuries heal," Stoic's shoulder hunched forward in grief and he swept from the room before Astrid could protest.

Astrid watched her chief's back as he squeezed himself through Gothi's doorway and left the elder's house. Disbelief and grief swirled in Astrid's stomach as she processed what he had told her. She glared murderously at her injured leg before flopping back onto the bed. She watched the shadows dance across the wood ceiling before determination once again steeled her heart. Stoic had said she was grounded until she healed, she'd just have to be sure she healed fast. Hiccup was counting on her.

 **Angelina: First off, I am so sorry that it took me so long to update!**

 **Arthur: We got a little too caught up in life and research for our senior thesis.**

 **Angelina: I am also sorry to leave you with that cliff hanger and that it will continue to be a cliff hanger. Arthur has been horrible at helping me think through the plot for Hiccup's current situation.**

 **Arthur: Meh, stress, I like messing with my author, etc.**

 **Angelina: I also apologize for Ruffnut and Tuffnut's characters. I just cannot seem to figure their characterization out!**

 **Arthur: Yeah, we are working on it. Get back to us later down the line.**

 **Angelina: The battle cry "Odin owns you all" derives from Norse mythology, however, the only sources I could find that detail this as an authentic Viking battle cry all date from the Victorian era or later so they aren't the most reliable sources. Also, many of Loki's children have a role in Ragnarök, so being perceived as the spawn of Loki is somewhat of a Norse religious slur or a belief that a particular creature was a sign of the end of the world. Also, the dragon Nidhogg, who gnaws at the roots of the great world tree Yggdrasil, is seen as the worst of the worst by Norse mythology. Makes sense why a village who doesn't normally encounter dragons would be very upset by a group of them descending on their island.**

 **Arthur: Bonus points to whoever can work out the eight legs reference. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the new chapter and we'll try to have the next one out soon so you lot will finally know what happened to Hiccup.**

 **Angelina: I hope you keep sticking with this story. Since it's Christmas break I will have lots of down time to write.**

 **Arthur: Happy belated Christmas!**


	19. Insult and Injury

Chapter 19: Insult and Injury

The world was shaking when Hiccup came back to himself. He vaguely registered the lumpy ground beneath his feet as his legs struggled to keep moving. There was an iron grip on his biceps. Hiccup didn't have the strength to lift his head and see who was dragging him along. Instead he focused his entire energy on the sluggish and clumsy movement of his legs. Neither one wanted to respond to his hazy mind as they wobbled horribly, like the legs of a newborn calf. Every step sent a jolt of pain reverberating through his body. Nausea roiled in his stomach. Hiccup swallowed convulsively, but the next moment bile was burning its way up his throat and out of his mouth. His knees went weak as he retched miserably. The hands on his biceps were the only things to keep him from pitching forward into the steaming pile of his own sick. Hiccup's head tipped back to look up at the sky as vomit dribbled down his chin. The young viking wobbled beneath the night sky, allowing whoever held his biceps to bear most of his weight. The stars slowly disappeared, fading into blackness until Hiccup's world went dark.

Consciousness eluded Hiccup as he swam in a world of muted colors and garbled sounds. Sparks of pain were the only thing to assure him that, yes, he was indeed still alive. Shapes moved across his vision, but the only response Hiccup could ever muster was incoherent groans and grunts. His head was full of wool and his stomach a gnawing hole of hunger and the acidic bite of bile. Periods of darkness and oblivion interspersed these drunken moments of incoherence, but there were not frequent enough to save Hiccup from his pain.

When the boy finally came back to himself, he was face down on his pallet. His noise was smooshed awkwardly into his furs and a wet cloth lay by his head. Soft voices were murmuring overhead.

"Dad?" Hiccup asked. He tried to move his head to see who was speaking. The movement shifted the muscles in his shoulder and Hiccup cried out as pain seared its way down his spine and across his shoulder blades. Hands reached out to stabilize him as another set fidgeted with a compress that Hiccup had not realized was covering the majority of his scrawny shoulders and a good portion of his back.

"Shh, svefn, Hiccup. Ye better am die morgen," Hedda's voice was thick and gruff, the gentle tone of her voice transforming back into the commanding voice of the overseer as he continued to cry out in pain.

After his muscles finished their spasms, Hiccup was hauled into strong arms. His head lolled weakly as he was hoisted into a semi-setting position and his good shoulder was braced against a broad chest. A horn was tipped against his lips. Strong mead flowed into the boy's mouth. Startled by the bitter liquid, Hiccup choked and spluttered weakly for a minute before the horn was tipped again and his throat swallowed convulsively. With a good portion of the horn finished, the boy was lowered back onto his bench, mind spinning and a disorientating tiredness flooding his body. Master Sigfred leaned over him once he was fully settled back. Too tired to even acknowledge the presence of the family head, Hiccup's mind faded into a haze. Voices sent him off. Hiccup dreamed of Valkyries.

The first sensation to return was the itch on his upper lip. Hiccup scrunched his nose in annoyance, trying to relieve the itch. His face was pressed into a rough cloth of some type. Carefully, he peeled his crusty eyes open to a blurred world. Blinking several times, Hiccup was finally able to clear the haze from his vision. Bare dirt and stone walls greeted him. The boy began to relax when he realized that he was back on his bench in Stong and no longer at the cursed smithy.

Hiccup shuffled around on his stomach, trying to get comfortable on the wooden bench. His shoulder was blissfully numb, but a dull ache still pervaded his sore muscles. His limbs felt like great stone weights as they refused to cooperate with his limited movements.

"Shh, Hiccup," Skili soothed in his scratchy voice. "Lie still, ye are still wounded."

Hiccup had not realized the boy was even there until he had spoken. There was a strange ringing in his ears.

"Careful now," Skili murmured more to himself as he levered his fellow thrall up and braced him.

Hiccup was directed to relieve himself in a waiting bucket, which he did with a strained "ahh." The act was both torturous and calming. It took a minute of awkward fumbling for Hiccup to manage the ties of his rough spun and well-worn trousers, but the relief on his over-full bladder was as heavenly a comfort as Hiccup could ask for in his present situation.

Once he was done, Hiccup hurried to stuff himself back into his trousers, the cold biting. This time, all his hands managed to do was tangle the ties. He growled in frustration.

Skili swooped in before Hiccup's frustration and pent up anxiety could explode, deftly lacing the trousers with a single hand. "It's okay, I got this. Don't worry."

Hiccup barely felt embarrassment as Skili fixed his ties for him and bundled him back onto his bench. Hiccup surrendered himself to the care of the other boy as his world grew hazy once more. He dreamed of pain and the struggle of life. Even in sleep, his collar was an uncomfortable weight around his neck.

* * *

 **Angelina: So I seem to have an affinity for hurting my characters, oops. Sorry to have two chapters back-to-back describing injuries.**

 **Arthur: You really should put a warning on this thing about graphic violence.**

 **Angelina: It's not that graphic, I am still well within the bounds of PG-13 if this were a movie.**

 **Arthur: Bloody Americans and their gory violence.**

 **Angelina: Anyway, now you guys finally get to know what happened to Hiccup!**

 **Arthur: And it only took you eleven sodding months to update this time.**

 **Angelina: The reason that the medical side is not being focused on as heavily is that there really aren't any reliable sources for Viking medical practices. From evidence in some of Snorri Sturluson's _Heimskringla_ and other sagas, it is believed that women were the primary caregivers, and also gives one of the few examples of Viking wound treatment. Herbalism and the like aren't really recorded until the 13th and 14th centuries, after the Christianization of Scandinavia, so most of the work is influenced by European medical thought. This is why most of the detail in this chapter about ointments and draughts is left vague. I used alcohol as a pain treatment because, hey, they're Vikings, why not use more mead to cure something? Popular culture depiction of Vikings really does oversell a love of alcohol, so I figured I could use that to my advantage. **

**Arthur: Wow, wall of text much?**

 **Angelina: Pseudo-history aside (seriously, half of this story is googled), I plan on trying to resurrect a regular schedule. Because I am now working 65+ hours a week, it will likely by bi-monthly instead of weekly. Leave me reviews, feedback, or messages if I disappear again!**

 **NEXT UPDATE: Hiccup deals with the fallout of his injury, his all-but-gone chances of escaping, and how to keep living after both his mind and body has been so severely battered.**

* * *

 **Post author's note, this chapter was reworked 12/23/16.**


	20. Even Strong Minds Break

Chapter 20: Even Strong Minds Break

Days passed before Hiccup was able to even rise from his bench. Skili and Geirhildr were regular attendants to his sickbed, changing his dressings and slathering his back in a greasy ointment. In the evening Hedda would heft the boy bodily, a carefully choreographed dance to avoid aggravating his shoulder. As either Snort, Skili, or Geirhildr replaced the soiled skins on Hiccup's bench, Hedda supported the boy over a bucket that served as their glorified chamber pot. Had Hiccup been in less pain, he would have been embarrassed to have his overseer play nursemaid, but the boy could barely hold himself up let alone attend to his daily toilet. His limbs shook with fatigue, pain, and the cold by the time he was finally lowered back onto his bench.

"Hiccup?" the voice broke through Hiccup's hazy thoughts. He had gotten lost in his memories as his mind constantly focused on his injured shoulder and the slow recovery process he had already been forced to endure.

"Hiccup?" the voice sounded again and Hiccup looked up to see Alfhild standing in the doorway to the thrall's chamber. The wife of Sigfred and mistress of Stong was taller than most women Hiccup had encountered in this strange land, her back rigid and straight despite years' worth of toil and several children. The fire burning low in the pit threw her face into sharp angles and for a moment, Hiccup was reminded of a Valkyrie. He nodded respectfully in response .

"Will you not join us? We have already lit the fire to Ostara and brought out the eggs," Alhild's voice was kind, but there was a note of disapproval in it.

Hiccup rose without a sound and allowed Alfhild to steer him into the main room of the longhouse and over to the other thralls. Geirhildr and Skili carefully tugged Hiccup down onto one of the benches and pressed an egg stained bright red into his hands. Hiccup took the egg and turned it over in his hands. He stared into the spitting fire as Sigfred turned a flank of lamb on a rod above it. Laughter and chatter filled the air around Hiccup and rung oddly in his ears. He felt like there was cotton in his brain as Herbjorn tried to engage him in conversation. For what must have been hours, Hiccup sat silently and turned the egg over and over in his hands. His eyes slid over the people in the room, noting Alfhild's two daughters as one painted a rabbit on the stones lining the fire pit and the other danced with her husband under a budding tree bough that had been tied to a bench post. His eyes continued past them to watch each of the longhouse's occupants in turn. Hiccup only averted his gaze when he came full circle to see Steinrodr sitting off in the shadows at the opposite end of the room.

" - heard Master Sigfred, Hiccup!" Skili's voice broke through Hiccup's daze. He looked up quizzically at him, but the boy rattled and Hiccup lost his train of thought again.

He was immensely grateful when Hedda pushed him off to his bench with the promise of early work. Settling back into his furs, Hiccup could hardly believe that the Spring Equinox had already come and that two seasons had passed since he had last seen Berk.

When Hedda finally hauled Hiccup off of his bench to work, the boy acquiesced with barely a sigh. The bandage on his burn was removed with gruff care to reveal shiny and irritated new skin growth. The blackened skin had been painfully scraped off and the remainder of the burn carefully treated. A white and thick scar was just beginning to poke out from the still tender skin.

"Ye are looky that ye did nae suffer infection," Hedda mumbled as she appraised Hiccup's condition. With a satisfied nod, she handed Hiccup his boots and shepherd's crook before shooing him outside.

The cold bit at Hiccup's skin as he emerged into the light of a new dawn. For a few minutes he stood and stared at the sky. How long had it been since he had seen the outside world? How much time had passed since everything had gone so horribly wrong?

A small, furry cannon buffeted his legs and forcefully yanked Hiccup from his innermost thoughts. Heifle excitedly wagged her tail as Hiccup smiled slightly. With a small whistle, the dog fell into step beside the goatherd and the two traveled off into the hills together. There was work to be done, after all, Hiccup knew his place and he had to work if he wanted to stay alive.

Work, however, was hard to manage after his injury as it left Hiccup feeling weak and struggling to adapt. The hills were hard on his body as he scrambled over rocks and slid down scree laden slopes after goats. The texture of goat udders in his hands felt foreign as Hiccup's muscles struggled to remember the correct motions for milking his doe. Every small movement was a reminder of the brand on his shoulder and the reality that he was truly stuck in this place, forever.

"Hiccup?" Geirhildr was bent over a goat opposite from him, her dirty plait falling over one shoulder as her arms worked in perfect rhythm. The girl didn't pause in her work as she continued to speak, "tell me stories of Berk?"

Hiccup shook his head silently and bent his head back over his task, missing the concerned glance and heavy sigh directed at him. He couldn't afford to think about Berk. His former home would only add to the burden on his already scarred shoulders. The other thralls were beginning to notice Hiccup's struggles as the days wore on.

"Hiccup!" Skili called enthusiastically as Hiccup carried more peat into the main longhouse for the fires. The boy jumped, his shoulders tensing as he swung around defensively to face the other thrall. Surprise twisted Skili's face as he stared at the other boy's taut body before Hiccup dumped his armful of peat and hastily ran outside.

"Eat b'y!" Hedda barked sharply as Hiccup shredded his hunk of bread and goat cheese into smaller pieces. The boy automatically stuffed a few pieces into his mouth before dumping the rest on the stone in front of Snortr. He turned his back on his overseer and stumped into bed before she could force anymore food on him. Why should he bother eating if everything tasted wooden and nothing helped to regain his strength?

Two weeks had passed since Hiccup had resumed work. Nearly a month had passed since that horrible day in the smithy, by his admittedly faulty counting. As the daylight grew longer, the days started to bleed together and Hiccup stopped caring how much time had passed since he had last seen Berk, last lain in his carved bed, last felt black scales beneath his finger. His body carried on without his consent, hands automatically milking goats, mouth whistling commands that sounded shrill to his own ears, and feet plodding on as his mind threw itself completely into survival. Nothing mattered anymore except putting on foot in front of the other. Nothing mattered. Nothing.

* * *

 **Angelina: There we go, just a bit over a month since the last update.**

 **Arthur: At least it wasn't a whole nother bloody year.**

 **Angelina: Yeah, I'm bad at this consistency thing.**

 **Arthur: Isn't that the truth.**

 **Angelina: Alright, chapter notes. The Spring Equinox was the celebration of Ostara, the goddess of spring and marks the point of the year when the days start to lengthen. Traditional celebrations included lighting bonfires at dawn, painting eggs, decorating with flowers tree branches and rabbit motifs. This was a time to celebrate rebirth, renewal, and the coming of spring. I thought this was a good juxtaposition for Hiccup coming to the point where he truly loses hope in returning to Berk.**

 **Arthur: Some of these traditions still carry over to today's Easter, which gets its name from Ostara, so that's why some things might sound familiar.**

 **Angelina: I've had a few requests for a chapter concerning Toothless. Rest assured, this chapter is in the outline and already half written, so there will definitely be an update concerning everyone's favourite dragon. I have that update slotted for chapter 24, but I might try to move it up a bit closer if people are really wanting to read that. Let me know if you would prefer it sooner than chapter 24 and I'll see what I can do!**

 **Arthur: We've reposted the last chapter to fix some errors, typos, and whatever the feck was going on with those last few chapters.**

* * *

 **NEXT UPDATE: Hedda intervenes in Hiccup's downward spiral, maybe escape might still be possible?!**


End file.
